Senator Levin and the way forward in Iraq

Senator Carl Levin seriously defines himself in the following exchange with Brit Hume on FoxNews Sunday about the state of progress in Iraq. I added some bold text:

LEVIN: But what we’re involved in now is a brutal civil war in Iraq where there is no political progress being made and where everybody — hey, Brit, this is not something where there’s a division.

This is something where everybody agrees that there needs to be a political settlement in Iraq, and where their own leader — this is the prime minister that Stephen Hadley touts — says that the reason that the violence continues is not the security situation.

He says it’s the failure of the political leaders of Iraq to reach a settlement.

HUME: Well, Senator…

LEVIN: That’s the problem. And there’s no progress in that area.

HUME: Senator, do you really seriously believe that Al Qaeda, which has unmistakably been responsible for particularly this recent rash of suicide bombings and other terrorist attacks, gives a fig one way or another about whether there’s a political settlement among the — involving these issues among the Iraqis?

That’s not why they’re fighting, is it?

LEVIN: No, I think Al Qaeda has a great propaganda advantage by the western occupation of a Muslim country, and that’s what’s gone on here for over four years.

HUME: Well, do you believe…

LEVIN: Al Qaeda has grown in Iraq. Excuse me. Al Qaeda, according to our own intelligence, has grown stronger in Iraq because of the American presence and the American policies that we would occupy a Muslim country.

Al Qaeda is stronger now in Iraq than it has ever been. It is growing in strength because of our presence.

Notwithstanding the rest of the same intelligence report he references (which later also says that our precipitous evacuation from the area would be catastrophic), Levin seems to believe without much resistance that the propagandized raison d’etre of the world’s most sinister and universally reviled terrorist syndicate is reason alone we must abandon our security interests in southwest Asia. In doing so he lends a cheap legitmacy to a terrorist voice that would otherwise find no patient ear.

HUME: So you believe…

LEVIN: You can’t just simply say…

HUME: Do you believe, though…

LEVIN: You can’t just simply say, Brit…

HUME: I was just going to say, Senator, do you seriously believe, though, that if you had the de-Baathification program passed, that the oil sharing law was passed into law, that the other areas of political progress which you have said are necessary — and I think everybody agrees with that — if all that were to come to pass, that Al Qaeda would go away in Iraq?

LEVIN: No, I think the best chance of defeating Al Qaeda in Iraq is through two things. One, if you have a political settlement in Iraq, number one, because then the parties there will go after the real enemy, which is Al Qaeda.

Secondly, under all of our plans — under the so-called Levin-Reed amendment, which is going to hopefully be allowed to be voted on, we do provide that there be a force remaining to help an Iraqi hopefully unified government go after Al Qaeda.

Of course there’s a problem in Iraq with terrorism through Al Qaeda, but it’s a growing problem because of our presence, because of the failure of the Iraqi political leaders to come together to go after Al Qaeda.

And yes, there will be a need to go after Al Qaeda after most of our forces leave.

As Hume said, is there a prerequisite for obtaining satisfactory performance on benchmarks before the threat of Al Qaeda can be addressed? Does Levin think that self defense waits while politicians debate?

The progress made recently in Anbar province is nothing if not political progress–at the grassroots level. Why is it that the war’s critics, who warned repeatedly at the onset of war about disrupting the myriad tribal complexities in Iraq, are the ones currently discounting actual positive transformation at that level?

Also–in the rest of the interview–how many times does Levin use the term ‘civil war’? Did the debate on the use of that term end recently? I’m eager for Levin to explain how internationally-supported militias and terror gangs, both mainly attacking innocent civilians and the US troops supporting and protecting them, qualify as executors of civil war. They may sow civil strife, but their souls had long ago been consolidated by regional actors. We are not sitting in the middle of a civil war. We are an active participant in an regional war (call it a proxy war if you must) and our colors are on the field.