Petraeus, Talking to Our Enemies, and the Lessons of Iraq Posted by Ilan Goldenberg

Spencer Ackerman reports that at a talk at the Heritage Foundation General Petraeus completely contradicted many of John McCain's arguments about Iraq and Afghanistan.  This wouldn't be so important if McCain didn't consistently cite Petraeus agreeing with him as a justification or his policies.  To a lesser extent McCain is using the same tactic that President Bush used in 2007 trying to take his own foreign policy philosophy and ascribe to a General who is seen as more credible on these issues.  So when Petraeus contradicts him on Afghanistan, Pakistan and how we should deal with our enemies it's a big deal.  This piece from Spencer I thought was particularly relevant. 

Petraeus also came out unambiguously in his talk at Heritage for opening communications with America’s adversaries, a position McCain is attacking Obama for endorsing. Citing his Iraq experience, Petraeus said, “You have to talk to enemies.” He added that it was necessary to have a particular goal for discussion and to perform advance work to understand the motivations of his interlocutors.

One of the main reasons for the drop in violence in Iraq was the Anbar Awakening.  As early as 2004 and 2005 commanders on the ground were pushing for the United States to negotiate with the insurgents.  But the ideological Rumsfeld leadership at the top of the Pentagon balked.  It's one of the reasons it took so long for the Anbar Awakening to happen.  As Colonel Sean Macfarland explained in his military review article on the early Anbar Awakening,  the tribes were beginning to turn against Al Qaeda in 2005. 

Anyone who has looked at Iraq closely would take away the lesson that you have to have a flexible and pragmatic approach to dealing with your enemies.  And yet McCain ignores all the political lessons of the last year and a half in Iraq.  Instead, he maintains his military-centric approach - praising General Petraeus for his success but refusing to acknowledge the political lessons that Petraeus himself has learned.  How else could you possibly explain McCain's policy of refusing to engage Iran, his opposition to engagement with Syria and his hard line stance on North Korea. 

John McCain used to be mentioned as a possible Secretary of Defense.  Here is a question to ponder.  If he was the SecDef would he, like Rumsfeld, have opposed negotiating with Sunni insurgents and tried to stop it?  If the Pentagon was under his leadership would violence have actually dropped in 2007?

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