James Taranto, the other day(Via mail) speaks about Murtha admitting there’s serious progress in Iraq, and that the surge IS working….
Murtha does make the obligatory complaint about lack of political progress in Iraq, and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette [1] reports that he complains the White House is making invidious comparisons:
As a reminder of how contentious the war debate is in Washington, a White House spokeswoman yesterday chastised Congress for failing to provide billions of dollars in emergency spending for Iraq and Afghanistan in the coming year.
“They only have six legislative days left in the session. Their focus should be on funding the troops, making sure the intelligence gap remains firmly closed, and by passing a budget, which is something that our country, our democracy, should be able to do,” Dana Perino said during a press briefing.
“They complain about Iraq; the Iraqis were able to pass a budget. It’s almost completed. Ours is nowhere near completed.”
Mr. Murtha said such language is “the kind of stuff that makes it very difficult to come to an agreement because it just alienates people in our party.”
But the Seattle Times [2] reports that Rep. Norm Dicks, a Democrat and fellow traveler of Murtha’s, made the same point on his recent trip to Iraq:
In Baghdad’s Green Zone, Dicks and his group, led by Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., the chairman of the Defense Appropriations Committee, were briefed by U.S. military leaders about their concerns that the Iraqi government is squandering the breathing room given it by the escalation of American troops. When his group sat down with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, Dicks said, “we were very disappointed about the lack of reconciliation, and the lack of urgency.” Maliki just nodded, Dicks said.
He reminded Maliki and his ministers that they need to pass legislation on sharing oil revenues and power among Kurds, Shiites and Sunnis.
“But I felt kinda embarrassed telling the Iraqis they had to get their act together and pass legislation when we can’t do it back here,” he said.
America is the greatest country in the world, but one thing we do not have–for better as well as for worse–is an efficient national legislature. It seems odd to declare post-Saddam Iraq a failure merely because it has the same lack.
(Chuckle)
There is that,James. And here’s the thing…. and I’ve said this previously: [3]
With all the progress that’s been happening in Iraq of late, the last refuge of the left is to complain that the Iraqi federal government there doesn’t have it’s act together.
While that’s true in large degree, it’s also beside the point. Change… real change… particularly the positive kind… cannot be imposed from above, it has to come from the people themselves. That’s exactly what is happening currently in Iraq. [4]
There’s an interesting parallel, here between the Left’s view of the relationship between the Iraqi federal and provincial governments, and their American equivalents.
When Katrina was an issue, the left complained [5] the federal government didn’t respond as they would have liked, but made no mention as to the actions of the state and local governments. . Invariably, they pointed at Louisiana as their example. Yet, they ignored similarly hard hit Mississippi’s recovery [6], which was driven at the state level. [7]
As with Katrina, the left under-estimates and underplays the role of the local governments… those levels of government not federal in nature. In both cases… Iraq and Mississippi, what needs to be done is largely being dealt with at the provincial/state level. [8] The provincial governments are agreeing on what the federal government could not, and things are getting done. This is an outcome that the left didn’t have on it’s radar simply because it doesn’t match their worldview of a huge centralized, all powerful government.
There’s a lesson there.
Indeed, I would say this list of recent successes is happening, not despite the absence of the Federal government, there, but BECAUSE of it.
That, of course, it is something that the Democrats dare not say.