[Peace-discuss] Missing from the Afghan "Surge": A Congressional Debate

[Robert Naiman]

[My blog of the new Greenwald video.]

A key fact about the recent history of Iraq is absolutely critical to
the nascent debate about Afghanistan: there was more to the Iraq
"surge" than sending additional troops, so if folks are going to
justify sending more troops to Afghanistan on the grounds that sending
more troops "worked" in Iraq, we should be talking about the other
elements of US policy in Iraq that changed after November 2006, not
just about more troops.
...
But another key element is missing with regard to Afghanistan that was
present in 2006-7 with regard to Iraq: public and Congressional
debate. An escalating sequence of political events, including the
Lamont Senate campaign, the recapture of the Congress by a Democratic
majority, the Congressional fight in the spring 2007 over a timetable
for withdrawal - all sent a clear message to the Bush Administration,
the US military, the Iraqi government and parliament, and Iraqi
society generally that time was running out for the US occupation, and
that was a key cause of the change in policies. Even Defense Secretary
Gates, while opposing a timetable for withdrawal, acknowledged that
Congressional pressure was helpful in bringing about change in Iraq.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-naiman/missing-from-the-afghan-s_b_170454.html

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/2/27/35513/5705/265/702492

http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/node/40277


--
Robert Naiman
Just Foreign Policy
www.justforeignpolicy.org
naiman at justforeignpolicy.org