Catch of the Day (Iraq Dept.)

I think the “catch of the day” prize goes to Solomon Moore in the LA Times, via Larry Johnson at TPM Café.

[Lt. Gen. Raymond T.] Odierno said another reason for Iraqis' alienation was the tendency of many leaders to be more interested in sectarian interests than the national good of Iraq. "We thought they'd come together rather easily," he said. "We underestimated that…. We thought they'd think Iraq first, and that didn't occur. I think maybe it will occur over time, but it's not occurring now."

So Odierno, our new “chief operating office” in Iraq. I know, taken out of context and all that. If means anything like what it seems to mean, it means that one of our top generals is as ignorant of the Iraqi political situation as—well, as the new chair of the House Intelligence Committee. Don’t they teach them at general’s school that Iraq—like, that it isn’t really a country at all, and became one Maybe they should give the commanders some of the books that reporters stuff in their backpack.

Second thought: Wait a minute, you criticize one general on the basis of one fragmentary quotation—but you ignore the fact the British, who screwed things up so royally at the end of World War I, included people like Gertrude Bell who actually did know something about Iraq, and still got everything wrong (for a crisp summary, go here). Response: Touché. Knowledge alone does not always trump hubris.

Third thought: Isn’t anybody but me intrigued by the fact that we now have, yoked together in Iraq, the general who had the best rep with the press (Petraeus) with another who had one of the worst (Odierno, supra).

Still another, um, thought: No surprise that the most trenchant analysis of the urge to surge comes from the master of boots-on-the ground military commentary, Fred Kaplan at Slate (link).