Black Box Report

Oooooo!!! Aaahhhh!!!

While the Petraeus and Crocker show was largely predictable (Iraq is better than it was seven months ago, but not so much better that we can continue bringing more troops home), there were some entertaining moments. Like John McCain waxing optimistic:

But today it is possible to talk with real hope and optimism about the future of Iraq and the outcome of our efforts there. For while the job of bringing security to Iraq is not finished, as the recent fighting in Basra and elsewhere vividly demonstrated, we're no longer staring into the abyss of defeat and we can now look ahead to the genuine prospect of success.

We can? That's great! I'll go tell eve...

Under pointed questioning earlier from Sen. Evan Bayh (D-IN), Gen. Petraeus painted a much more somber picture of Iraq than many of his Republican cheerleaders:

It's why I've repeatedly noted that we haven't turned any corners, we haven't seen any lights at the end of the tunnel. The champagne bottle has been pushed to the back of the refrigerator. And the progress, while real, is fragile and is reversible.

Uh, nevermind.

Not that that was the only inevitabvle demise of another wingnut talking point, like this one from Blogs for Bush Victory's inimitable Mark Noonan:

While the MSM will maintain the fiction for as long as possible that Sadr won in Basra, the facts indicate that the Iraqi government and military passed their first stern test on the road to being fully self-sufficient, and put a huge dent in the pretensions not just of Sadr, but of all wanna-be warlords.

Uh-huh. Basra. The benchmark of the New Success we're to expect more of in Iraq.

Or not:

"There's no question that it could have been better planned and that the preparations could have been better," Army Gen. David Petraeus told the U.S. Senate's committee on armed services.

"It was not adequately planned or prepared," he said.

Asked by Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain of Arizona whether the operation had been a disappointment, Petraeus agreed that it had been.

Of course, that wasn't McCain's high point of the testimony. This was:

MCCAIN: Do you still view al Qaeda in Iraq as a major threat?

PETRAEUS: It is still a major threat, though it is certainly not as major a threat as it was say 15 months ago.

MCCAIN: Certainly not an obscure sect of the Shi’ites overall?

PETREAUS: No.

MCCAIN: Or Sunnis or anybody else.

Head. Brick wall. Apply. Repeat as necessary:

I can’t figure out if he’s doing this because he’s too stupid to learn and educate himself or if he buys into the Rovian theory that if you stubbornly keep repeating something over and over that eventually, it’s accepted as the truth. Either way, is that the kind of Commander-in-Chief we need after Bush?

There were other moments of Republican fun 'n' games, Certainly Sen. Lindsey "Huckleberry" Graham's man-crushes on Petraeus and Crocker were high in entertainment value (if a bit hard on the stomach), but the prize for Most Ridiculous Statement had to go to our old friend "Smokin'" Joe Lieberman. As in, "What the #$%^@! is he smokin'?"

Joe Lieberman is probably beyond shark-jumping at this point, but his statement that Iraqis have made more progress on political reconciliation since September than have Americans is really pretty appalling. To state the obvious, America has a heated political debate, but liberals and conservatives aren't shooting mortars at each other and we don't have pitched battles in the streets. To compare the situation in Iraq to the persistence of strong partisan disagreement in the United States is idiotic.

But not all Republicans present embarrassed themselves the way the Three Amigos did. Sen. Voinovich practically burst an artery, all but calling for a timetable for withdrawal, and Sen. Chuck Hagel wanted to know, along with the American people, "what the end is going to look like." That's when Petraeus got all existetial on him:

We’ve got to continue — for how long? Petraeus won’t say. What conditions in Iraq define success? Petraeus doesn’t know — but when he sees the conditions, then he’ll know what they are.

So....success in Iraq is like porn?

Fortunately, the hearings had a presidential candidate on hand who put on his lawyer hat and walked the Dyanamic Duo through the process of defining what success is, or in this case, is not:

Obama was able to hit Petraeus and Crocker very hard....He got Petraeus to agree with him that the total elimination of Al Qaeda is an impossible standard for withdrawal. Next he goes after Crocker's points about Iranian influence, pointing out that both Iran and Al Qaeda are in Iraq because we invaded and that we can not expect to eliminate Iranian involvement.

Then came the hammer. Obama pointed out that if the definition of success is put so high - no Al Qaeda, no Iranian influence, a prosperous diverse democracy we will be there forever. He then points out that we still, after 8 hours of testimony, have no definition of success....Crocker's weak response its "hard and complicated."

Sort of reminds me of the President's view of governing.

Even Sen. Carl Levin, not normally known for being the most aggressive questioner of Bush's policies on Iraq, got his blood up. Seems that five years after being told that Iraq oil profits would pay for the reconstruction, they haven't, and with oil well over $100 a barrel, Iraq is now sitting on tens of billions of dollars in surpluses:

At a time of economic distress in the United States, including fears of recession, home foreclosures, job losses, infrastructure strains, and health care worries, U.S. lawmakers publicly are asking why the Iraqis themselves can’t pick up the tab for their own reconstruction. Privately, several of them are going one step further — asking whether they Iraqis actually are playing the U.S. taxpayers for suckers.

Why not? The administration is.

But for sheer attitude, no one compared to Smilin' Joe Biden, whose foreign policy acumen and trademark testiness were both on display:

There was once a blog called Joe Biden Is Thugged Out. (I swear this is true.) Biden just proved why. He asked Ryan Crocker, who used to be ambassador to Pakistan, whether it would be better for U.S. interests to go after Al Qaeda on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border or Al Qaeda in Iraq.

Crocker, in an impossible political position -- give the correct answer and humiliate the Bush administration; give the administration's answer and look like a fool -- dodged as much as he could. Then Biden forced him down. Crocker: "I would therefore pick Al Qaeda on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border."

As dday says over at Digby's, "Game Over":

Every single argument that the Administration and their lapdogs like John McCain have made or are making break down after that answer. The Ambassdor to Iraq just admitted that Iraq is not the central front in the war on terror. He just admitted that the potential for Al Qaeda to gain a beachhead in Iraq should the United States withdraw is miniscule compared to the already-established beachhead along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. He admitted that the global fight against terror is currently misdirected.

Of course, this is D.C. we're talking about, and all the sound and fury will eventually signify nothing, as is the way of these things. But at least we got our spanking new catch-phrase for the war, at the expense of those soldiers who won't be coming home after July, thanks to the plan to "pause" troop withdrawals:

Lest Congress get any crazy ideas about honoring the wishes of the majority of Americans and start bringing the rest of our troops home, the administration is going to run out the clock hiding behind the idea of a "pause."

I put it in quotes because what they're proposing isn't actually a pause -- in fact, it's precisely the opposite of a pause. What they really mean is a continuation. But since "stay the course" was 12 slogans ago, they had to come up with a new one.

This is standard operating procedure for the Bush administration: every time they look at the events on the ground in Iraq, instead of responding with a smart policy, they respond with a catchy new slogan. Usually an utterly misleading catchy slogan....

Just take a look back at what we've had so far. First there was "Gathering Threat." Then "Axis of Evil." And then, in order:

"Slam Dunk"

"Shock and Awe"

"Mission Accomplished"

"Last Throes"

"Adapt to Win"

"Stay the Course"

"New Way Forward"

And then "The "Surge." And now "The "Pause."

Which is just "Stay the Course 2.0".