Ellen Tauscher (D-CA) has returned from Iraq and given an interview to a liberal blog site--Think Progress--in which she complains about a 'Green Zone Fog' that clouds the minds of Members of Congress. She is to be congratulated on getting so close to the truth; we have identified it here as a 'Jedi Mind Trick' performed on elected officials by General David Petraeus. Fortunately, Tauscher is too disciplined to be fooled by Master Petraeus. She insists that the surge is not working, and that Iraq is in fact 'dramatically worse' than when she last traveled there two years ago.
In this respect she differs from--well, from most every serious person who has recently addressed the situation. Certainly those who travel beyond the Green Zone believe that things have gotten better. Those include O'Hanlon and Pollack, Tony Cordesman, Congressmen Ellison, McNerney, and Mahoney, and even Hillary Clinton from her perch stateside.
And this anti-surge jag actually represents a bit of a departure for Tauscher, who has formerly been targeted by the left for her 'Bush Dog' views. One liberal site suggests that it was pressure from the Netroots has forced Tauscher to toe the company line:
But politicians react to fear, and the threat of a Democratic primary challenger is often what it takes to get these Bush Dogs in line. Earlier this year, there was lots of buzz in the liberal blogosphere to challenge Congresswoman Ellen Tauscher, who has generally fought against progressives since getting elected. Even without a candidate emerging, Tauscher has taken a stronger stand against the War after the bloggers scared her.
The Wall Street Journal apparently agrees; they noted before she went to Iraq that she had moved to the left to avoid criticism from the base:
Tauscher, long known for her national security credentials, has toned down her hawkish impulses, voting against the recent surge and taking a harder line on missile defense.
One example of her shift: on July 29, the DailyKos criticized Tauscher for arguing that legislation to impeach the Attorney General was unconstitutional. By August 2, she had signed on as a cosponsor of the same measure.
None of this is to say that Tauscher is wrong in her views on Iraq--though she is. But there is clearly reason to believe that she will go to great lengths to please the battiest readers of ThinkProgress, DailyKos, and other liberal blogs.
And it's clear that Tauscher went to Iraq intent on not accepting anything said by General Petraeus or any other representative of the U.S. military. She says that she refused to go to Iraq for two years because she did not want to be forced to "drink the Kool Aid." She says that the military showed her nothing that did not support their contention, shaped by 'empirical facts,' that things have gotten better. Yet she somehow saw that sectarian strife remains an insurmountable problem, and that there is no reason to continue the U.S. presence.
That presents one problem though: it is universally agreed that sectarian violence will follow the U.S. departure. Indeed, Democrats insist that the U.S. depart precisely because such violence is an intractable problem for the foreseeable future, and we can do nothing about it. Many predict a spasm of ethnic cleansing after we withdraw, perhaps coinciding with the collapse of an unstable government.
It seems rather silly then for Tauscher to insist that the withdrawal not resemble a '"Saigon-like helicopter liftoff trying to remove people" and not be followed by "ethnic cleansing and devastation of Iraqis." The continuation of Operation Phantom Thunder is intended by the military and the government to prevent both of these outcomes. If Tauscher has some plan to withdraw that is just as effective, then she ought to share it.
