Low-hanging fruit is plucked, then eaten. In the other faction, there still are those so impervious to experience that they continue to refer to Syria as "lower-hanging fruit." Such metaphors bewitch minds. after so much frustration of having to listen to what we listened to." The markets are teeming with people." Boyda explained: "There is only so much you can take until we in fact had to leave the room for a while. Jack Keane was saying things Boyda thinks might "further divide this country," such as that Iraq's "schools are open. She left a hearing of the Armed Services Committee because retired Gen. Nancy Boyda, a Kansas Democrat, recently found reports of progress unendurable.
James Clyburn of South Carolina, House majority whip, recently said it would be "a real big problem for us" - Democrats - if Petraeus reports substantial progress. Consider the following from the war-is-irretrievable faction:
The rapturous reception of that column by one faction was evidence of the one thing both factions share - a powerful will to believe, or disbelieve, as their serenity requires. "The situation in Iraq remains grave," fatalities "remain very high," "the dependability of Iraqi security forces over the long term remains a major question mark," "the Iraqi National Police" are "mostly a disaster," "Iraqi politicians of all stripes continue to dawdle and maneuver for position," it is unclear how much longer we can "wear down our forces in this mission" or how much longer Americans should "keep fighting and dying to build a new Iraq while Iraqi leaders fail to do their part," and "once we begin to downsize, important communities may not feel committed to the status quo, and Iraqi security forces may splinter along ethnic and religious lines." "We are finally getting somewhere" ("at least in military terms"), the troops' "morale is high," "civilian fatality rates are down roughly a third since the surge began" and there is "the potential to produce not necessarily 'victory'" but "sustainable stability." How febrile is this faction? Recently it became euphoric because of a New York Times column by two Brookings Institution scholars, who reported: The other faction, equal in anger and certitude, argues, not for the first time (remember the transfer of sovereignty to Iraq, Iraqi voters' purple fingers, the Iraqi constitution, the killing of Saddam's sons, the capture of Saddam, the killing of Zarqawi, etc.), that the tide has turned. The war, this faction says, is lost because even its repeatedly and radically revised objective - a stable society under a tolerable regime - is beyond America's military capacity and nation-building competence, and is politically impossible given the limits of American patience. involvement can have no benefit commensurate with the costs. One faction - essentially, congressional Democrats - is heavily invested in the belief, fervently held by the party's base of donors and activists, that prolonging U.S. Perhaps nothing he can responsibly say will sway either, so September will reinforce animosities. David Petraeus delivers his September report on the war, his Washington audience will include two militant factions. Still, remember the bitterness stirred by the accusatory question "Who lost China?" and corrosive suspicions that the fruits of victory in Europe had been squandered by Americans of bad character or bad motives at Yalta. The Weimar Republic was fragile America's domestic tranquility is not. The fact that fanciful analysis fed this rancor did not diminish its power. Many Germans bitterly concluded that the political class, having lost its nerve and will to win, capitulated. It would be milder than the original but significantly disagreeable.Īfter World War I, politics in Germany's new Weimar Republic were poisoned by the belief the army had been poised for victory in 1918 and that one more surge could have turned the tide. WASHINGTON - Come September, America might slip closer toward a Weimar moment.
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