The
Huffington Post
Arianna Huffington
Benchmarks: Yet
Another Bush Mirage Shimmering in the Iraqi
Desert?
The hottest term in post-veto Washington is suddenly
"benchmarks." If you had a dollar for every time it's
been bandied about his week, you could outbid Rupert
Murdoch for the Journal -- or, at least, pay for all
the Valium being downed by Deborah Jean Palfrey's
clients.
But amidst all the benchmark babble, there has been
precious little clarity on whether they represent an
acceptable compromise position -- or are just another
Bush mirage shimmering in the Iraqi desert.
Thank goodness for Michael Ware, CNN's Baghdad-based
war correspondent. Amid the hot air, his reporting is
like a bracing splash of ice cold water to the face.
A jolt of from-the-belly-of-the-beast reality. A
wake-up call delivered via jackhammer. With an
Australian accent.
I caught him the other night on Anderson Cooper 360°,
discussing the latest from Iraq with Cooper and David
Gergen. Now I love David Gergen as a person, but the
contrast between his safely-ensconced-in-the-Beltway
take on benchmarks and Ware's boots-on-the-ground
no-bullshit approach couldn't have been starker.
Here was Ware:
COOPER: Well, Michael Ware, let's talk about
those benchmarks... The benchmarks, I guess, are to
pressure Maliki. Has pressure worked on him in the
past?
WARE: No, never. This is such an old scenario,
Anderson. I mean, this word benchmark has been used
over and over and over. And no matter what
conditions have been set for Maliki to meet, he's
never once lived up to them. So, now Washington is
trying to up the ante, increase the pressure upon
him in what most likely will be the vain hope that
he will deliver.
Woosh, sting (that's the sound of ice-water truth
hitting face).
He later added this, the verbal equivalent of taking
a pair of White House-designed rose-colored glasses
and grinding them into the sidewalk with your heel:
COOPER: Is this notion of a unified democracy of
Sunni and Shia, is there any real support for it
within the Iraqi government?
WARE: No, no, none that I have seen, Anderson.
And I have dealt a lot with all of the important
factions within the Iraqi government. It's simply
in no one's interest whatsoever to pursue a true
reconciliation.
Then there was Gergen, and this gem of mealy-mouthed
waffling:
GERGEN: While the benchmarks may seem like sort
of a Washington game, in some ways, they're a very
important prelude to the United States beginning to
look for a way to disengage.
A prelude to beginning to look for a way to
disengage?
In other words, let's wait until September to see how
things are going, then, if this latest in a long line
of unmet benchmarks also goes unmet, we can begin to
commence to initiate the starting of thinking about
the mulling over of the consideration of a possible
path that could, in time, lead us to begin to
commence to start looking for a means that could,
with any luck, result in America beginning to
commence to start withdrawing from Iraq. Eventually.
The truth is, we keep putting forth key benchmarks
for the Iraqis -- on Iraqi troops, on oil revenue
sharing, on reversing De-Baathification, on amending
Iraq's new constitution -- and they keep failing to
meet them. Time after time after time.
Democrats mustn't fall prey to the benchmark mirage.
They need to stay strong and keep the heat on Bush.
Perhaps they can put Michael Ware's reports on tape
and have them piped into their Congressional
offices.