Testimony on Iraq

The Monday testimony before Congress of Army Gen. David H. Petraeus on what’s been accomplished with the recent “surge” of 30,000 additional troops in Iraq was scheduled as long ago as last spring, and widely built up as a “moment of truth.”

Those who won’t be satisfied till President Bush disembowels himself on live television apparently hoped the general would admit the U.S. armed forces can’t fight their way out of a paper bag, then rip off his stars and quit.

Reality is rarely such a stark shade of red or green. The general reported his forces have killed or captured 100 al-Qaida leaders and 2,500 rank-and-file fighters, and that civilian deaths and incidents of violence are both down in recent months, even in Baghdad.

Responsible opponents were left to challenge how Gen. Petraeus’ statistics were gathered and counted, as is their right.

But the general might as well have testified in Pig Latin, for all it mattered to such outfits as MoveOn.org. The hyperliberal pressure group didn’t even wait to hear the general’s testimony before taking out a full-page advertisement in The New York Times, dubbing Gen. Petraeus “General Betray Us” and accusing him of “cooking the books.”

“Opponents of the war denounced Petraeus’ testimony before he said a single word,” Jonah Goldberg reported in Tuesday’s Los Angeles Times, “not because they know the facts better than Petraeus — please — but because anything that doesn’t fit the narrative of an ever-worsening quagmire must be a lie of some kind. MoveOn.org even seems willing to suggest that Petraeus’ personal motives are perfidious.

“Many Democrats too have been grudgingly breaking from their base’s otherworldly narrative of late,” Mr. Goldberg continued, “though they continue to insist that a ‘political solution’ can be had in Iraq without a concomitant military one.”

It was left to Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker, sitting beside Gen. Petraeus, to acknowledge that Iraq’s current political leaders have made little progress in forging the national consensus and reconciliation that was the original goal of the surge.

In Washington, as well, most positions now appear calcified. “I don’t think it’s going to change many minds,” Rep. Dan Boren, D-Okla., told The Washington Post of Gen. Petraeus’ testimony. “It’s kind of like we’re at the same point we were at months ago.”

Will Iraqis partition themselves, de facto, into three countries? Will a new strongman emerge to replace Saddam Hussein? Is it impossible for the residents of such a backward land to comprehend the benefits of a tolerant, pluralistic, secular republic?