Valley Star

Issue date: 4/18/07 Section: Opinion

Media Credit: Ricardo Barrera

Last November's election results, which gave Democrats majorities in the House and Senate, were not a clarion call for withdrawal from Iraq, but rather a demand for a change in strategy.

That's exactly what President Bush delivered, replacing Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and General John Abizaid, as commander of U.S. central command. General George Casey was swapped for the unanimously confirmed counterinsurgency expert David Petraeus. Petraeus took command on February 10 and began to carry out Bush's new surge strategy.

The surge's goal is to achieve sustained security in Baghdad. Then U.S. and Iraqi troops can, like liquid that spills, percolate toward other troubled areas. Early achievements include:

1. In the first month of the surge, Major Gen. William B. Caldwell, the top U.S. military spokesman in Iraq, reported, "execution style-killings…were down 50 percent."

2. In Baghdad, Robert Kagan of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace noted that security tips about insurgents that Iraqi civilians provide has jumped sharply. Stores and marketplaces are reopening, increasing the sense of community. People displaced by sectarian violence are returning to their homes.

3. Last month all major Iraqi groups agreed on a fair allocation of oil wealth. Not since 2003 had all major political parties collaborated on major legislation. This agreement, U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad said, "should give us confidence that Iraqis are willing and able to take the steps needed for Iraq's success." Additionally, Shia Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki met with Sunnis, encouraging more inclusion in government.

Despite progress, and only half of the troops for the surge deployed, legislation narrowly passed calling for withdrawal by March 31, 2008. Flirting with a random date to leave exudes asininity.

That's like a student who takes a 50-question test and is only allowed to answer the first 25 questions. Even if he does well, the teacher fails him.

Opponents of the surge have become intoxicated with the imaginary sanguinity of a hasty withdrawal, but they don't detail its consequences. Fortunately the Iraq Study Group (ISG) and National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) do.

The ISG said, "premature American departure from Iraq would almost certainly produce greater sectarian violence and further deterioration of conditions." The NIE explained rapid withdrawal "almost certainly would lead to a significant increase in the scale and scope of sectarian conflict in Iraq, intensify Sunni resistance to the Iraqi government, and have adverse consequences for national reconciliation."

The bill also included more than $20 billion in special-interest giveaways. To get the votes needed, according to Tax Payers for Common Sense, millions were given to California spinach growers and storage fees for peanut farmers in Georgia. An emergency funding bill that affects the lives of U.S. troops should not be used to bribe Congress members.

We should do what is strategic and moral, and not as Sen. Joe Lieberman warns, "what appears easier in the short term." We cannot quit on strategic grounds because Iran and Syria will gain immeasurably.

There are still Iraqis intent on building their embryonic democracy; we have a duty to foster that dream.

Extracting victory from the clenched jaws of defeat requires a Herculean effort. Yet compared to the platitudinous "stay the course" slogan or arbitrary timetables, the surge sets a strategy that can lead to the amelioration of the conflict in Iraq.

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