Word: crockers
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...certain into sand. Lawmakers from both parties expected September to be a month of reckoning for the President's Iraq policy - a stop-or-go moment when the U.S. would decide whether to continue the surge or begin an inevitable pullback. But even before Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker utter a word to Congress, that debate looks almost moot. Bush appears ready to continue the surge for another six months or so, and the Democrats lack the votes to check him. So what will unfold instead in Washington this month is not a debate about the surge but the beginning...
...Petraeus and Crocker have been the best soldier and the best diplomat to serve the U.S. in Iraq. But they see the situation from different perspectives, and their ideas about what to do next may differ as well. The Petraeus testimony seems obvious. He will emphasize the Sunni success, the tamping down of violence in Baghdad, the need for political reconciliation. He will ask for more time, acknowledging that the natural rotation schedule will leave him with fewer troops, a reduction from 20 to 15 combat brigades over the next year. Bush may try to hold his Republicans in place...
...This seems to be Bush's preference; it's certainly been the neoconservative line. Crocker, however, isn't so sure. In a recent conversation, he said, "We are getting some feelers from southern tribes who are tired of JAM," referring to the Jaish al-Mahdi, the Sadr militia. But, he continued, "tribal identities are stronger among Sunnis." Shi'ites tend to adhere to larger social structures, like the two prominent family dynasties in Shi'ite Iraq-the Sadrs and the Hakims. "It has a lot to do with Shi'ites' traditional underdog status," he said. Actually, Crocker seems constitutionally averse...
...Crocker is the antithesis of the ideologues who provided the intellectual rationale for the Iraq war. He is a classic example of what the neoconservatives scornfully call an Arabist. He is fluent in Arabic and Farsi and has a real affinity for the cultures of the region. He was in the Beirut embassy when it was bombed by Hizballah in 1983, and he dug through the rubble for his lost colleagues. His proudest moment was raising the flag in post-Taliban Kabul, reopening the U.S. embassy. He was a co-author of a secret 2002 State Department assessment called...
...Realpolitik raises the essential question about Iraq, the one that should have been asked before the invasion: Can the U.S. impose Western niceties-democracy, a constitution, a national army-on a noncountry divided into tribes and sects and family dynasties? My guess is that Petraeus might say yes and Crocker might say no, but that both would agree the U.S. does have a role in mediating the mayhem as the Iraqis stumble toward their own solutions. The general comes to this moment more optimistic than the ambassador, which is why Crocker should be listened to more closely. When I asked...