The Right Man At The Wrong Time

The President finally appointed a new commander in Iraq, Lt. Gen. David H. Petraeus. Gen. Petraeus commanded the 101st Airborne during a tour in Iraq in 2003. He managed the most successful integration of the military in Iraq society. Petraeus rejected the prevailing military view that the Iraqis were terrorists who needed to be pacified. Instead he made the focus of his attention living among the Iraqis and struggling to see the world fro their point of view. Petraeus enjoyed startling successes in 2003.

Petraeus reflects a change in two significant ways. The military must view appointment to the Iraq theater as a necessary step in a career path. This ensures that he best and the brightest seek a tour there. Otherwise, the military culture will write off the Iraq war and focus attention elsewhere. Second, the military and the White House needs to stop seeing Iraqis as the enemy.

The problem, of course, remains that the appointment, while amounting to a significant change in military orientation, comes far to late to matter. US Military commitment can no longer make much difference in Iraq. We have proved incapable of separating the parties vying for power, for revenge, for chaos, for world view. We never made any attempt to understand the Middle East before entering Iraq. The President had to have the various religious sects explained to him, well after he ordered bombing to begin.

The Shia/Sunni divide hardly needs US troops for targets. The struggle in the Middle East for dominance started coming apart at the seams (again) soon after the rise to power of a Shiite government in Iran, after the fall of Reza Shah in 1979. The US felt the tremors first in the kidnapping of Americans from the embassy.

Any settlement of violence in Iraq, and the avoiding of spreading further in Syria, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan, lays in resolving this timeless rift in Islam. Something America is uniquely unqualified to do. A beginning must be made and that means negotiating with Iran. We may have little to say to one another, but we must begin.

Another positive note may be appointment to the UN of Zalmay Khalilzad.