No need to consider you might not know when everyone else is dead wrong

Ariana Huffington has a pretty funny post on her blogpage today I thought worth sharing.

The Mainstream Media's Take on Iraq: Right, Left...And Dead Wrong

Huffington's concern is with mainstream, objective, thoughtful analysis, as she makes clear in her post:

Divorced from the reality of what's going on in Iraq. Wedded to a deluded perception of the war. Unwilling to acknowledge widespread and irrefutable evidence to the contrary. Sound like anyone you know? No, I'm not talking about President Bush -- though it's certainly true of him as well. I'm talking about the mainstream media, and their relentless depiction of the Iraq war as a left/right issue, even as the facts give lie to this hoary framing.

According to a Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll, 60 percent of Americans oppose Bush's escalation of the war, and 65 percent want to "withdraw right away" or "withdraw within a year." Other polls reach the same conclusion: Iraq is simply not a right vs. left issue.
But you'd never know it from watching the pundits on television.

Here's Howard Fineman on Countdown with Keith Olbermann: "...that's the tension that people like Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and Joe Biden are caught in as they try to move to the left on the war without taking themselves out of the mainstream of the country."

Of course, what Fineman means by "left on the war" is being in favor of ending the war, and against Bush's handling of it. No Democrats need worry that taking those positions will take them out of the mainstream.

But don't tell that to Candy Crowley. Here was her cobweb-covered analysis of Ted Kennedy's anti-escalation measure: "What Senator Kennedy is going to do is lay down the liberal view of things, which is to say, he will say, look, no additional troops and no additional money for additional troops, unless Congress approves."

The "liberal view of things"? More like the view of things of almost two-thirds of the nation."

The same 2/3 of the nation that supported the invasion going into Iraq - as well as the same 2/3 plus of Democrats in office who supported that invasion - and have backed away from the decision now that things have gone terribly wrong, Ariana argues, are being ignored now that their collective conventional wisdom has finally got the right answer on this whole war in Iraq thing.

As Ariana argues:

"When the macro framing of the war is so warped, it makes productive discussion of how to deal with Iraq even harder. The encouraging thing is that while so many in the mainstream media continue to believe that being in favor of ending the war means you're a "left-winger" and "out of the mainstream," a growing number of politicians don't.

How long will it take for the media to recognize reality and drop their outdated, obsolete, and thunderingly inaccurate framing of the war debate?

Iraq is not about right and left. It's about right and wrong -- and the vast majority of the public clearly knows this. It's time for the media to catch up."

The problem with the war in Iraq is not that we don't know exactly what to do or that a fuller and more good-faith policy discussion might both create more humility about the situation and more ideas about how to facilitate better political and security solutions for the situation there.

The problem is that the media is not listening to the wisdom of the American people. And that they, like the corrupt conservatives and Republicans that they toadie for, have seen the choice between right and wrong and they have chosen to do wrong.

Ariana goes on to outline all of the reasons for why she thinks a withdrawal will most effectively facilitate a more democratic and peaceful Iraq:

...in another post, I'm pretty sure.

I mean, Ariana's a smart gal. She's not going to claim that she understands the basic rights and wrongs of Iraq and the world without making her case. Ariana's only concern is with the strongest, most thoughtful, most decent and humane policy - the right decision - in how to handle the mess in Iraq, right now.

The truth is that I like Ariana Huffington. I think her and Nancy Pelosi and Democrats are being really self-righteous, right now, about what they are sure are the right answers to handle the situation in Iraq, but I like Ariana and Nancy Pelosi both. The truth is that, like everyone else, they really don't have much a clue exactly what will make the situation better. Everyone knows what they would like to see (although, for many, many people, Democrats and Republicans, this means a situation that is better for America, first and foremost, and better for Iraq as an afterthought).

But getting to a more democratic, more peaceful, more free, and less bloody Iraq is a more difficult question that everyone wants to play Emperor with and yet noone is really wearing much clothing, these days.

Here's my thinking about Iraq.

I don't know exactly what will make the situation in Iraq better. The current moment has made it so much clearer to me how little anyone does, including a lot of the more thoughtful policy people I've read and respected. The people who have really earned my respect in the last few months have been people like George Will and David Patreus, the new commander of operations in Iraq, who have said as much about the situation, and yet maintained some commitment and hope that a workable and more democratic solution can be found.

I tend to agree with military historian Frederick Kagan and Weekly Standard editor William Kristol - All We Are Saying Is Give Petraeus A Chance - that the best hope in Iraq is to better secure Iraq with necessary additional troops to create sufficient security to facilitate constructive dialogue to find a political solution and the necessary compromises on the outlook for a democratic Iraqi government between competing parties. Following through on even the threat to withdraw troops - which would be necessary to make that threat credible - would leave parties in a civil war engaging in ethnic bloodshed with no credible third party, in an underprepared Iraqi national army, to put an end to that bloodshed and facilitate a political solution.

The truth is that I don't know what exactly will resolve the security and political problems of Iraq, right now. I'm just convinced that the only hope for a political resolution is found in the context of an improved security situation, which I (and the Iraqi government) am not confident at all, at this point, would be facilitated by the withdrawal of American troops. If the Iraqi government or the Iraqi people were asking for an American withdrawal, I would feel different about what we should do, not because I would all of a sudden have more confidence in the Iraqi army and law enforcement to handle the situation, but because I would respect the self-determination of the Iraqi people, right or wrong. As is, I have very little confidence in the Iraqi government and people to handle the explosive and very complicated security situation in their own country and respect their government's request for assistance until they are ready to be responsible for the situation without the presence or with limited presence of American troops.

I could be wrong about that. The presence of American troops could be the cause of much of the insurgency and sectarian bloodshed may calm down if Americans are out of the picture, or the threat or actual withdrawal of American troops might be what is needed to motivate the Maliki government to find a political compromise, to effectively challenge and undermine the sectarian commitments of Al Sadr's Shia militias as well as the sectarian efforts by Sunnis and Kurds, or as Charles Krauthammer has posited, this might be a situation that only Iraqis can resolve and that an escalated American presence is unlikely to improve.

I'm not sure exactly what will undermine and halt the violence and create the space for a political solution that only Iraqis can arrive at. I just happen to think that the arguments and plans laid out by people like Frederick Kagan are the best I've seen thusfar.

It makes sense to me that an precipitous American pull-out would only create a power vacuum in the competition for a monopoly on the use of force that Shias and Sunni militias would only feel emboldened by and too afraid not to engage for fear of being killed, mass murdered, and oppressed should their competitors will out in such a conflict, and that such open conflict without credible third-party security, aligned with the sovereign Iraqi government, will make political solutions and political compromise both less likely and for such political compromise to become a pawn in a military conflict meant to up the ante on the use of force to leverage for political power in the emerging Iraqi governing compromise solution.

I have to say that it is really, really refreshing when I read people saying that they're not quite sure about what to do in Iraq. It's more honest, first of all. And it shows more genuine humility in the face of this most serious issue that America and the world faces, nevertheless in the myriad of other issues that America and the democratic and non-democratic world face.

It is always interesting to me that the people least likely to say that they don't know how to find sustainable resolution on various issues are, generally, the same people who are completely sure of their need, right, and wisdom in bullying me or others in doing what they hold such absolute wisdom over.

The less likely people are to question their own wisdom, the more they think they should be able to impose that wisdom on others is the one rule of life that you can count on more than any other, in my experience.

And there is no other issue in America where that truism plays itself out with more tragic absurdity than the war in Iraq, right now, sadly.

I've never followed an issue where such absurdity was so clear to me and tragic as a consequence in my all too brief lifetime. So many people so goddamned sure of their respective solutions, so sure that they feel the compulsion to impose it on the Iraqi government, the President, the American people, and anyone else who gets in their way, and yet so few people in agreement that any particular solution is likely to yield success.

The whole exercise bears out the reason to be skeptical that people in government or who aspire to steer the ship of state, as journalists, activists, scholars, minor and major politicians, and even everyday citizens, are somehow wiser or better in their understanding of the world. We must participate in a democratic society and government to contribute and be responsible for efforts as serious as war and peace, especially, and yet we all engage that discuss so self-righteously, with so little thought and genuine efforts to listen and consider and respect different perspectives, ideas, and arguments, and with so much too-certain certainty about what will resolve our shared and especially our independent problems.

Even around an issue like the war in Iraq which burden is clearly shared by the American people and which clearly needs a government response, the certain answers for how to resolve our most serious problems are still so elusive (except to those who most certainly do not deserve our trust that they really have arrived at certain answers).

And the war in Iraq is our best case scenario for a political question that most certainly needs a collective, government (and therefore imposed) response.

Hubris, the Greeks whisper to us. Hubris.

Love,
Ben