Moving The Goalposts

Moving the goal posts to the 50 yard line doesn't really get you a meaningful win.

And so it is that General Petraeus has now admitted what most of us have already observed about the surge: tactically successful, it does not equate to victory in Iraq.

Iraqi leaders have failed to take advantage of a reduction in violence to make adequate progress toward resolving their political differences, Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, said Thursday.

Petraeus, who is preparing to testify to Congress next month on the Iraq war, said in an interview that "no one" in the U.S. and Iraqi governments "feels that there has been sufficient progress by any means in the area of national reconciliation," or in the provision of basic public services.

I read the transcript of a Jim Lehrer interview with Iraq war architect Fred Kagen and his ideological opposition, Nir Rosen, a few days ago (I can't remember how I found it) and was struck by Kagen's tendency to speak in rah rah generalities while Rosen spoke in painful specifics. This has been an interesting tendency by both parties since the beginning, IMO. War proponents speak in lovely generalities and war opponents have been very specific about the issues. I'm a detail person (despite my haphazard and unfocused writing of late) so maybe that's why I have had such a hard time buying the rah rah. Anyway, the interview is here... I found it very interesting. Maybe you will, too.