Connecticut Commentary: Red Notes from a Blue State

Michael O’Hanlon and Kenneth Pollack, both senior fellows at the Brookings Institution, considered by many a liberal think tank, published on July 30 a column in the New York Times that immediately caused ripples in the leftist anti-war community. The lede was startlingly blunt: “Viewed from Iraq, where we just spent eight days meeting with American and Iraqi military and civilian personnel, the political debate in Washington is surreal. The Bush administration has over four years lost essentially all credibility. Yet now the administration’s critics, in part as a result, seem unaware of the significant changes taking place.” And the second paragraph, written by two thoughtful consistent critics of President Bush’s prosecution of the war, was a stunner: “Here is the most important thing Americans need to understand: We are finally getting somewhere in Iraq, at least in military terms. As two analysts who have harshly criticized the Bush administration’s miserable handling of Iraq, we ...