The Opinionator

July 12, 2007, 4:34 pm
Rose-Tinted Benchmarks?
By Tobin Harshaw
Tags: benchmarks, George Bush, harry reid, Iraq

The White House’s status report on Iraq “benchmarks” is the big subject of the day. If you’ve got a lot of time on your hands, check out Ilan Goldenberg’s “fact check” of the report at National Security Network, which finds in sum that “some benchmarks claimed as ‘satisfactory’ only demonstrate minimal progress, not achievement. Others have been achieved on the surface, but fail to accomplish the overall purpose of the specific measurement.”

Not wonky enough? O.K., Noah Shachtman at Wired magazine has reprinted an even more comprehensive assessment of the report distributed by the estimable Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, who feels that “the Iraqi government has not really met the Bush administration’s benchmarks in any major area.”

Or, if you have a job or a life or a family or anything else to do this afternoon, plenty of other bloggers are happy to give you opinion unburdened by such attention to facts.

“While we can troop surge to the cows come home, the fact is that when the people of Iraq turn on Al Qaeda - such as in Anbar, we will see rapid success,” insists Macranger at Macsmind: “The long and the short is that this report DOES show progress. General Petraeus and the troops have only been on the ground a few months and from all accounts making significant progress.”

The blogger at Down With Tyranny disrespectfully disagrees: “Bush’s fantasyland report claims progress in 8 of 18 benchmarks Congress set. Bush claims the Iraqi constitution is being revised, minority rights are being protected in the legislature, semi-autonomous governing regions are being set up, Iraqi political and economic support for military operations to secure Baghdad neighborhoods …. Before I go into the absurdity of all these preposterous claims, even Bush agrees that other benchmarks have resulted in dismal failure.”

Over at Prairie Weather, the emphasis on Iraq itself is deemed the problem: “Where Al Qaeda is making itself felt is in its old stamping ground in Pakistan and Afghanistan. While Bush is maintaining a tenacious hold on a failing policy in Iraq, the reality of failure in Afghanistan is much more dangerous to the U.S. Bush is using an exhausted American military effort in Iraq to bolster his political position even as he cripples our military’s ability to respond to the growing power of the real Al Qaeda.”

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has his own benchmark update, saying that we must withdraw from Iraq and “dedicate our resources and attention to Al Qaeda and the real threat it poses.”

This prompts some questions from the Gateway Pundit:

“Umm.. What about those 12,000 Al Qaeda members operating in Iraq, Harry? What about the 4,000 Iraqis killed or wounded by Al Qaeda in the last 6 months, Harry?”

Those questions, of course, are likely to go unanswered — as opposed to those raised by the administration’s benchmark scorecard, which will, unfortunately, be answered in terms of human lives.

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July 12, 2007, 9:36 am
Safety in Numbers
By Tobin Harshaw
Tags: worth a click

From Thomas Malthus to Al Gore, one of the subtexts of most gloomy assessments of humanity’s future has been that the planet is overpopulated. Nicholas Eberstadt of the American Enterprise Institute, however, has crunched the numbers, and comes to a very different conclusion:

In a physical sense, the natural resources of the planetare clearly finite and therefore limited. But the planet is now experiencing a monumental expansion of adifferent type of resource: human resources. Unlikenatural resources, human resources are in practicealways renewable and in theory entirely inexhaustible –indeed, it is not at all self-evident that there are any“natural” limits to the build-up of such potentiallyproductive human-based capabilities.It is in ignoring these very human resources that somany contemporary surveyors of the global prospecthave so signally misjudged the demographic andenvironmental constraints upon development today –and equally misjudged the possibilities for tomorrow.

What will happen in Iraq if American troops are pulled out? Austin Bay, who has spent a bit of time in combat zones, envisions seven potential scenarios. No. 5 seems, um, not so good: “The region becomes a cauldron. Iraq shatters into ethnic enclaves, a few ‘new Mesopotamian city states’ managing to control oil fields. Iran and Turkey exert ‘regional influence’ over eastern Iraq and northern Iraq, respectively, but concerned about confrontation between themselves or provoking sanctions from Europe and the U.S., neither send their military forces in large numbers beyond current borders . Terror attacks and intermittent fighting afflict neighborhoods throughout Iraq. Local warlords rule by fear and make money either smuggling oil, drugs, or arms. This tribal hell is a perfect disaster—the kind of disaster that allows Al Qaeda to build training facilities and base camps for operations throughout the Middle East and Europe.”

In reference to the criticism non-candidate (wink, wink!) Fred Thompson has received for his past lobbying and lawyering activities, the gang at Powerline has posted a reader’s commentary on the inherent problems faced by members of the bar when they run for office. “Every person, unpopular or not, is entitled to representation,” the writer insists. “The views of attorney Abe Lincoln would have been a little hard to discern from looking at the positions he took as a lawyer. He represented the big railroad companies and on other occasions represented farmers and small land owners against the railroads.”

Why is this of note? The name of the guest commentator: Fred Thompson.