For months the military transports to Baghdad have been stuffed with analysts and congress members, and every one of them has gotten a full court press of carefully planned and scripted presentations, tightly controlled visits to favored units, and assorted dollops of "classified" information designed to flatter his guests and substantiate his rosy assessments without the inconvenience of having to defend them in public. And it's worked. Even though there's been no discernable political progress, minimal reconstruction progress, and apparently no genuine decrease in violence, he's managed to convince an awful lot of people that the first doesn't matter, the second is far more widespread than it really is, and the third is the opposite of reality.
Talking Points Memo agrees with this analysis, but who's really changed their mind? As far as I know, the only people who've been influenced by the Petraus propoganda effort have been a couple of Democratic congressmen like Brian Baird of Washington state who didn't support timelines for withdrawal anyway. Figures like Carl Levin and Hillary Clinton have made token acknowledgements of the "Anbar Awakening," but Democratic politicians have also shown a lot of irritation over the heavy handed manipulation of the Petraeus apparatus. There hasn't been any movement among the moderate and liberal punditocracy either. I remember a little David Ignatius hand-wringing about partisanship, but neither Bush-sympathetic columnists like David Broder nor moderately liberal types like Clarence Page have come out in favor of the surge. In the final analysis, Petraeus' effort to influence opinion makers to support the surge has been just as much a failure as the surge policy itself.
And public opinion hasn't changed either. That's not surprising. Having had so little effect on opinion-makers, it was unlikely that Petraeus would have much impact on broader public opinion either. The American public still disapproves of Bush's conduct of the war, disapproves of the President's overall performance, and believes that the U. S. should start withdrawing troops by April, 2008. In fact, the most notable feature of current public opinion is the disgust of ordinary Democrats with Democratic politicians for their failure to end the war. When Pelosi and Reid caved into the President over supplemental war funding last May, they left a lot of voters (and bloggers) extremely frustrated. Now, even consistently anti-war senators like Ron Wyden of Oregen are getting roughed up in town hall meetings over their failures of leadership. The Petraeus public relations campaign has had a negligible impact on the public as opposition to the war has hardened into contempt for any politician even vaguely connected to the war effort.
Has anything changed at all as a result of the propoganda effort in favor of the Iraq War? I would say yes. The morale of the Bush administration, Republican politicians, and the right-wing attack media have all improved as a result of the O'Hanlon/Pollack editorial and President Bush's speech on Iraq and the Vietnam analogy. There never was any real chance that Congress could override presidential vetoes on Iraq war funding, but the pro-surge campaign has ensured that the President will have nearly unanimous Republican support.
Perhaps that's all that General Petraeus wanted out of his propoganda efforts, reassurance that he would be able to continue the current levels of American troop commitments through spring and summer 2008.
But nothing's changed. The U. S. is still an anti-war nation that's fighting a disastrous war because of the arrogance and stupidity of a shrinking minority.
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Petraeus is all public relations and no substance.
"The U. S. is still an anti-war nation that's fighting a disastrous war because of the arrogance and stupidity of a shrinking minority." Correct analyses.
Americans are tired of an administration that told us the mission was accomplished, when the tally of American dead was only beginning to mount.
Americans are tired of an administration that continues to demand time for a policy that stands no chance of ever succeeding.
It is clear that people understand that there are no easy options. But they also understand that the President’s strategy simply does not protect U.S. interests. We understand that Mr. Bush is wrong to buy time, to hand the mess he created in Iraq off to Hillary, or Barak, or John , and to keep our troops in harm’s way with a policy that is not worthy of their sacrifice. Keeping them in Iraq indefinitely is simply not the solution.
It is true, there will be violence when our combat troops leave. But there will be far more violence if we continue to police Iraq’s civil war as the President proposes.
We need to end the war, responsibly move our troops as well as US civilians out of Iraq.
Then, we need to renew the alliances that kept the world safe when the threat of nuclear war was a clear and present danger.
We put our safety at severe risk when we act unilaterally in an interdependent world.
Our image is abysmal in most Muslim countries and it continues to decline among the people of many of America’s oldest allies. And our image around the world matters. It matters to our security, it always has and it always will. Ending this unacceptable war is essential to our security and to regaining our respect in the world.
Nothing that Petraeus says or does can change those realities. No document baring Petraeus' name can make it so. Course change and slow, steady, continuous withdrawl and redeployment as well as diplomacy are the keys in Iraq.
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