The Senate Armed Services Committee held hearings yesterday on the confirmation of Lt. Gen. Douglas Lute as the administration’s new “war czar.” Lute was a controversial pick for the job, having previously gone on record with his own doubts about the president’s new strategy for bringing stability to Iraq, aka the surge. Beyond that, the mismanaged process by which Lute was finally selected was also controversial–at least three former generals turned the job down before the administration offered it to Lute. And finally, there are more than a few observers who questioned whether there was any merit at all to the position. Czars don’t exactly have a stellar track record for getting things done in Washington, one need only look at the position of “drug czar”–an office that was created during the Reagan administration despite opposition from Reagan himself–to see that adding more bureaucracy is no guaranteed path to victory.
Lt. Gen. Lute makes like a window at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government.
At least with the drug czar, there was no confusion about who was in charge. Determining just what the responsibilities of this new position are seems to be a bit more confusing. Senator Carl Levin said yesterday that he understood the job to entail “bringing coherence to an incoherent policy, a policy that is still floundering after more than four years of war in Iraq.” That’s probably not what the administration had in mind, and Lute seemed to disagree as well, saying
That description does make clear that Lute understands his position in the chain of command–he’s not giving orders to Petraeus, he’s supporting Petraeus here in Washington. But it would do Petraeus no good to have a war czar that didn’t believe in the war as it was being waged. And in an effort to shore up his pro-surge credentials, Lute said at the hearing that “America’s at war, and the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan represent what we in the military call the ‘main effort’ in the long war.” So he thumbed his nose at Congressional Democrats who’ve sought to banish the term “long war” from official use, and he said what supporters of the president’s new strategy needed to hear–Iraq is the central front in the war on terror, meaning defeat would not just be humiliating for the U.S. military and catastrophic for the people of Iraq, it would be tantamount to surrender in the war against al Qaeda. But does Lute really believe this, or is he just saying what we want to hear? Lute told Hadley he didn’t consider making that case here in Washington as part of his job. And back in February, when I heard Lute speak at a Kennedy School Forum, he did not appear to hold the opinion that Iraq represented the central front in the war on terror. In fact, Lute didn’t seem all that optimistic as to whether victory in Iraq could even be achieved. Lute’s analogy was that of a window closing. There was a window of opportunity, he said, in which the people of Iraq would consent to U.S. assistance in helping form a new, democratic government. That window was closing he said, and it may have already closed. One can lambaste the administration for its failure to appreciate the facts on the ground and to manage the war accordingly, but if one believes that this country is engaged in a long war against al Qaeda and its ilk, and that the war in Iraq is central to that fight, then one cannot view victory there as an opportunity that may or may not have passed. Victory may not be certain, but it must be viewed as necessary and vital to American interests, especially by the man whose job it is to make sure that the troops in the field have the support they need to succeed. All of which explains why, when pressed to comment on Lute’s appointment, Senator McCain offered this tepid response:
The good news is that Lute is unlikely to undercut that support for Petraeus, publicly or otherwise. The bad news, don’t expect Lute to help explain what’s going on over there to the people asking questions back here. Update: CQ defense reporter and WWS pal Josh Rogin covered the hearing spoke with NPR’s Here and Now. Click here to listen.
