Deadlines

General Petraeus sez of Congressional efforts to impose a deadline for withdrawal of troops from Iraq:

“I’m not sure that hard and fast deadlines are useful in the sense of providing the enemies out here just a time to which they have to hang tough, and then know that we would be going.”

This seems to me very weak logic. The insurgents in Iraq, like the insurgents in times past in places like Vietnam or El Salvador or the Phillipines or Sri Lanka or China, have much longer time horizons than we could conceivably have. They're willing to fight for a decade, two decades, more. It is absolutely inconceivable that US troops will remain in Iraq that long. In effect, the Iraqi insurgency, like insurgencies everywhere, has already adopted the "hang tough and wait it out" strategy. The only question is how long they need to hang tough, and I don't think they really care.

Now, if General Petraeus could assure us that in say two years' time there will be progress on the political front, he might be able to persuade me that imposing a one year deadline is counterproductive. But he can't make that assurance - we're no closer to a political solution now than we were a year ago, and won't be any closer a year from now than we are today.