Black Box Report

Why, if two liberal "analysts who have harshly criticized the Bush administration’s miserable handling of Iraq" report that things are going brilliantly there, then that must mean success is right around the corner! The Pony! It is ours! Rightwing blogs loved the Brookings Institute's Michael O'Hanlon and Kenneth Pollack's New York Times op-ed, mostly because it reinforced their own positions:

Coming from these two critics and with the Brookings stamp on it, this is very significant. An illustration of how much better it is in Iraq.

But without the all-important political progress in Iraq - of which there is none, a fact curiously glossed over by Messrs. O'Hanlon and Pollack, busy as they with moving the goalposts - all the prospects of “sustainable stability” is so much smoke and mirrors. In this case, “sustainable stability” means "Political and social cohesion that can be maintained until the next general election." Even such august supporters of The Surge as Rick Moran find it hard to interpret "A War We Just Might Win" as evidence of the fact that we can, y'know, win:

If the best we can hope for at this point is “sustainable stability” – and I doubt that this is really possible on a nationwide scale – then it’s time to change the plan to reflect that reality. There is no military victory to be had. If Bush and the rest of you believe that, I might ask victory against who? Against what? To what end?

"There is no military victory to be had." Something that some of us knew before going into Iraq.

Ah well, live and learn.

Except for all the dead Iraqis. And dead US troops. Not so much "living and learning" for them.

I'll get to more of the op-ed's cherry-picking in a moment, but beyond that, there's something even more disingenuous. Just because people claim to be harsh critics of the administration doesn't mean they are:

That O’Hanlon and Pollack describe themselves as observers who have “harshly criticized the Bush administration’s miserable handling of Iraq,” is obviously a political strategy. If they can convince the reader that they’re White House critics, who work for a historically left-leaning think tank, then their support for the current strategy caries more weight.

Except the claim is inherently misleading. O’Hanlon and Pollack endorsed the war before it began, and have eagerly backed the occupation ever since, including the so-called “surge.” These guys “have harshly criticized” the administration the same way that John McCain and Lindsey Graham have — as enthusiastic war supporters who’ve been frustrated at times by the Cheney-Rumsfeld policies. But that doesn’t make them objective, credible analysts; on the contrary, they’re touting dubious results that bolster their own predictions.

"A historically left-leaning think tank" is an apt expression. When Fred Kagan and the American Enterprise Institute go to one of your think tank shindigs to unveil their Super New Surge Plan!, your "left-leaning" is pretty much history. O'Hanlon and Pollack's “harsh criticisms” were about how Bush and Rumsfeld messed up their pet war. This is like complaining the sirloin you ordered came medium rare, not medium. You still ordered the steak, not the vegetable plate. Glenn Greenwald, in a pair of his Gajillion-word posts, has combed through the pair's writings over the last several years, and says the two were "harsh war critics" like Attila the Hun was a diplomat:

As the failure of the war became manifest in late 2004 and into 2005, O'Hanlon began acknowledging the problems in Iraq but blamed the "administration's strategy," even though he was a constant defender of that strategy and did not object to it until the war failed. That is what Serious Experts do -- advocate plans and then blame everyone else when they fail, including those whose "plans" they cheered on at the time.

And who could forget Pollack's 2002 pacifist, anti-war manifesto "The Threatening Storm: The Case for Invading Iraq"?

Administration critics indeed.

But back to the cherry-picking. Eight days in Iraq. They were there man. You don't know. Actually, they don't know either, because they made sure they didn't go anywhere that would ruin their narrative:

But only one interviewer, CNN's Wolf Blitzer, asked either O'Hanlon or Pollack about the circumstances of their visit. Blitzer asked, "[D]id you have the freedom to say, 'I want to go here, I want to go there'? Who organized, in other words, the stopovers, the visits that you were having?" Pollack responded that the trip "was largely organized by the military." In other words, Pollack and O'Hanlon "largely" saw what the military wanted them to see.

Hmmmm. Sounds familiar. Where have I heard....?

Oh, yeah. Right.

I can only assume that Pollack and O'Hanlon consciously decided to wander Iraq with rose-colored glasses; they make no effort to detect or describe any of the enduring difficulties in the country.

Actually, they were strap-on rose-colored blast goggles. All the better to see the ponies. And when even they didn't show things the way the Sunshine boys wanted, they just made stuff up:

Pollack and O’Hanlon applaud the administration’s military strategy for providing “basic services — electricity, fuel, clean water and sanitation — to the people,” praise the ‘reliability‘ of Iraqi security forces, and express genuine surprise over “how well the coalition’s new Embedded Provincial Reconstruction Teams are working.” O’Hanlon’s metrics of success have no grounding in reality:

– Residents of Baghdad are now receiving just one or two hours of electricity each day
– Iraqi security forces are deserting in large numbers
– A new report released last week found that reconstruction has stalled

Never let the truth get in the way of a good story.

But this is just an Sunday op-ed in "the liberal media." We know by now that people like O'Hanlon and Pollack are given space to spout this nonsense, and when they turn out to be wrong - repeatedly - they will still be welcomed back with open arms as "experts".

But in other arenas, well...that's a different story.

Weird, I know, but it looks like Mike O'Hanlon's testifying before a House subcommittee in a bit, so I think I'll head over.

.....and later.....

O’Hanlon

Totally backed down. Said the progress has only been against aqi, that sectarian violence and the civil war is as bad as ever, and that the current strategy will probably fail. He thinks we should partition the country. Why the turnabout from the optimistic op-ed? He didn't say.

Accountability-free punditry. Nice work if you can get it.