A NYT op-ed piece today, by the Brookings Institution’s Michael E. O’Hanlon and Kenneth M. Pollack, puts the questions about Iraq and time front and center.
Currently, neither O’Hanlon nor Pollack are apologists for this conflict, just the opposite in fact:
Here is the most important thing Americans need to understand: We are finally getting somewhere in Iraq, at least in military terms. As two analysts who have harshly criticized the Bush administration’s miserable handling of Iraq, we were surprised by the gains we saw and the potential to produce not necessarily “victory†but a sustainable stability that both we and the Iraqis could live with.
So, when even critics concede rays of hope, are others willing to follow suit? Some might, though certainly not all. From TalkLeft:
I have a new litmus test for the Dem Presidential candidates – they must promise not to have Michael O’Hanlon and Ken Pollock in their administration.
And there we have what’s wrong with today’s politics in a nutshell: Someone doesn’t like the message, so they shoot the messengers.
TIME’s Joe Klein is more reasonable, though still skeptical:
I agree with many, but not all, of the conclusions Ken Pollack and Michael O’Hanlon reach in this NY Times column, but you really can’t write a piece about the wa[r] in Iraq and devote only two sentences to the political situation, which is disastrous and, as Petraeus has said, will determine the success or failure of the overall effort.
Net: Stability and security are pre-requisites to productive politics. In Iraq, we’re making progress on the stability/security front. But there’s no guarantee that, even with a stable, secure country, Iraqi politicians will be able to play nice, compromise, and construct a lasting nation.
Time will tell, but time may very well be the one thing of which we no longer have enough. And that’s a shame.