The Brookings Institution’s Michael O’Hanlon caused quite a stir a couple of weeks ago with an NYT op-ed, co-written with Ken Pollack, on U.S. “progress” in Iraq. The piece immediately became The Most Important Opinion Piece Ever, at least as far as Bush and his supporters are concerned.
The two, who recently returned from an eight-day visit to Iraq, argued that U.S. forces are “finally getting somewhere in Iraq.” O’Hanlon and Pollack added that they were “surprised by the gains” they saw, and now believe there’s a potential for “sustainable stability that both we and the Iraqis could live with.”
The White House, GOP presidential candidates, and the rest of the GOP establishment embraced the op-ed as gospel — and proof that any talk about troop withdrawal is premature. After all, the right said, O’Hanlon and Pollack work for the “liberal” Brookings Institution, and are “critics” of the war.
Within a few days of the NYT op-ed being published, the two started backpedaling just a bit, conceding the lack of political progress in Iraq, which was, of course, the original point of the surge. O’Hanlon shed additional light on his perspective in a fascinating interview with Salon’s Glenn Greenwald, which was published today.
The whole thing is worth reading, but Glenn emphasized a point that was omitted in the original Times piece, and went largely unmentioned in the ensuing coverage: O’Hanlon’s and Pollack’s perspective was shaped in large part by what the Pentagon allowed them to see.
GG: The first line of your Op-Ed said: “viewed from Iraq where we just spent the last eight days interviewing American and Iraqi military and civilian personnel…” How did you arrange the meetings with the Iraqi military and civilian personnel?
MO: Well, a number of those — and most of those were arranged by the U.S. military. So I’ll be transparent about that as well. These were to some extent contacts of Ken and Tony, but that was a lesser number of people. The predominant majority were people who we came into contact with through the itinerary the D.O.D. developed.
It’s a very informative interview. Be sure to take a look.
