Hi Gang:
I watched snipets of the hearings on Iraq with General Petreaus and U.S.Ambassador in Bagdad ,Ryan Crocker.

Virtually all of the questioning was directed to Petreaus.

This made no sense...if most Congressmen agree that the military[Petreaus] is doing a great job...and the real problem is a political problem[Crocker's responsibility] ...why weren't the bulk of the questions directed to Crocker???

He's the guy who isn't getting the job done !!!

Isn't it Crocker's job to bring the pressure on Iraq to make the important political changes???

If not Crocker,then who ???

hippolips

The two points that The Times here noticed were

1) that Mr Crocker admitted that, if forced to choose which would be most beneficial to US security - defeating al Qaeda in Afghanistan or Iraq- he would opt for the former

and

2) that General Petraeus said he did not know who had determined, or when, that Iraq was the central front in the 'war on terror'.

Together these do show the nonsense of the claim made that, for the US, Iraq was a front in the so- called 'war on terror' or that invading it had anything to do with terror. Everything by way of terrorist attacks or conspiracies which we have suffered in Europe is traceable to Afghanistan. Everything which the US has suffered in that way is traceable to Afghanistan. It is Afghanistan where al Qaeda and Islamic extremists train the men who attack us and where our home grown terrorists are finally indoctrinated in jihadist terror. It is Afghanistan where al Qaeda is based. It is Afghanistan where Osama bin Laden is.

Iraq has only a comparatively few al Qaeda people. It didn't have any to speak of before the invasion. It is the invasion that got al Qaeda there.They do not appear to be popular with the Iraqi locals.The persistent fear about Iraq is that, having thrown out a tough dictator, we have prepared the place for civil war.Why should we think that al Qaeda will ever use Iraq as a base when it has established and large support in Afghanistan and is completely safe there?

Juan Cole suggests that there's been no political settlement because of the US military presence. What incentive does Maliki have to negotiate agreements, when he knows he can get the US air force to bomb his rivals?

Possibly one reason that Petraeus got more attention is that he's the one Bush says he'll take advice from. The White House isn't saying it'll listen to "the diplomats on the ground" (That doesn't quite have the same macho ring to it - although think of the lives that could have been saved, had the US taken a a diplomatic approach to Iraq.)

Of course, the idea that Bush listens to his commanders is just another PR fraud, as the Fallon affair showed. He appoints people who'll say what he wants to hear.

Isn't it Crocker's job to bring the pressure on Iraq to make the important political changes???

If not Crocker,then who ???

This was my point: regardless who gets elected president,someone is going to be responsible for bringing political pressure on Iraq or we'll never get out of Iraq.

If it's not Crocker's job ...whose job is it????

I figured one of you political geniuses would know.

hippolips

quote:

This was my point: regardless who gets elected president,someone is going to be responsible for bringing political pressure on Iraq or we'll never get out of Iraq.

Political pressure on whom exactly, and to do what exactly? What important political changes? And why would it necessarily be the job of a US official - not, say, an Iraqi, an Iranian, a coalition of neighbouring countries, or someone from the UN?

I think Juan Cole's point was that there's no political pressure on Maliki to reach agreements while the US army is still in Iraq. Actually, the US's getting out of Iraq might be how to force the various factions to find some way of getting along together.

A couple of the points that Maliki and Sadr, two key players, disagree on are that Maliki would like to privatise Iraqi oil (selling it to US companies) and that Maliki is signing agreements to allow the US army to stay indefinitely in Iraq. Remove US pressure on Maliki from those points and wouldn't there be that much less for the Iraqi factions to disagree about?