I love living in Washington.... But over the past few months it has come to resemble one of those decadent triviality pits, like Paris in the 19th-century French novels. C'est délicieux!
Posted on 04/26/2004 9:05:15 PM PDT by neverdem
These are the crucial months in Iraq. The events in Najaf and Falluja will largely determine whether Iraq will move toward normalcy or slide into chaos.
So how is Washington responding during this pivotal time? Well, for about three weeks the political class was obsessed by Richard Clarke and the hearings of the 9/11 commission, and, therefore, events that occurred between 1992 and 2001. Najaf was exploding, and Condoleezza Rice had to spend the week preparing for testimony about what may or may not have taken place during the presidential transition.
And for the past 10 days, all of Washington has been kibitzing over the contents of Bob Woodward's latest opus, which largely concerns events that happened between 2001 and 2003. Did President Bush eye somebody else's dinner mint at a meeting? Was Colin Powell in the loop on Iraq? When did Bush ask the Pentagon to draw up war plans?
This is crazy. This is like pausing during the second day of Gettysburg to debate the wisdom of the Missouri Compromise. We're in the midst of the pivotal battle of the Iraq war and le tout Washington decides not to let itself get distracted by the ephemera of current events.
Members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee did at least hear testimony last week on the political transition in Iraq. But they might as well have held hearings on the supplemental reappropriation cloture amendment for the deputy assistant under secretary of the Postal Services Review Board for all the media attention they received. No networks, save C-Span, provided coverage. You peered behind the witnesses and the room was practically empty. It looked like a Michael Moore book reading at the Citadel. Only a few papers wrote stories.
What's going on is obvious. The first duty of proper Washingtonians is to demonstrate that they are smarter than whomever they happen to be talking about. It's quite easy to fulfill this mission when you are talking about the past. It's child's play for a salad-course solon who spent the entire 1990's ignoring foreign affairs to condemn the administration piously for not focusing like a laser beam on Al Qaeda on Aug. 6, 2001.
It's harder to be a smart aleck about the future, especially in regards to Najaf and Falluja, where none of the choices are good ones. Do the Baathists win a victory every day they hold off our siege? Or if we take them out now, do we undermine Sistani? We Klieg Light Kierkegaards will give you the right answer — three years from now, after whatever option the president takes has been judged and found wanting.
Some people in other places may like to look through keyholes to see women in their underwear. We here in the political class like to look through keyholes to see what happens when a bunch of alpha males (and females) with the jobs we wish we held sit around a table and curse about people not in the room. After two years of Iraq obsession, many of us couldn't tell you what the Dawa Islamic Party stood for if our kids' Sidwell admissions depended upon it, but the frisson we feel hearing the nasty words Colin Powell said behind the back of Douglas Feith! C'est délicieux!
Don't get me wrong. I love living in Washington. I still think it is the least superficial of the interesting American cities, owing to our inability to experience sensual pleasure. But over the past few months it has come to resemble one of those decadent triviality pits, like Paris in the 19th-century French novels.
Meanwhile out in the world, the American people have decided they at least are going to be serious. While we capital Clios are lost in the quagmires of ostentatious parlor game parallelism (Is Iraq Vietnam or the intifada? Is 2004 1920 all over again?), many Americans have decided that it's time to persevere and win. The number of Americans who want to increase troop levels has tripled. Many people want to stick it out, and judging by President Bush's jumping poll numbers, they seem to admire his decision not to engage with us Beltway types.
Over the next weeks, U.S. forces are going to jump from the fires of unilateralism to the frying pan of multilateralism. What's going to happen when our generals want to take on some insurgents but Brahimi and the sovereign Iraqi appointees say no? We here in Washington will have a considered opinion. Our opinion will be that Joseph Wilson really nailed Karl Rove in his forthcoming book.
Good line.
The "paper of record" has 2 OpEd columnists whose perspectives are from the right. Brooks is one. Bill Safire, who wrote speeches for Nixon, is the other.
I love living in Washington.... But over the past few months it has come to resemble one of those decadent triviality pits, like Paris in the 19th-century French novels. C'est délicieux!
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