Only a week after Gen. David H. Petraeus, the senior American commander in Iraq, testified before members of Congress, military and political commentators visiting the University argued for and against the recent troop "surge" in the war-torn country.
The debate about the Iraq war took center stage at the University yesterday evening in a televised event hosted by the Miller Center of Public Affairs. The hour-long debate in the Rotunda, broadcast by numerous Public Broadcasting Service affiliates, brought together a group of renowned foreign policy scholars and Washington insiders.
"What's this all about? What's this accomplishing?" asked Chas W. Freeman, Jr., former U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia, of the troop escalation. "Someone asked General Petraeus that question, and he couldn't answer it because it was above his pay grade. He shouldn't have been put in a position where he was asked that question to begin with. That question ought to have be asked of the president. The president has not answered that question."
Advocates for the "surge," as much of the public is now referring to the influx of U.S. troops in Iraq, argued keeping troops in Iraq is vital for America's national interests in the Middle East. Among the strongest supporters of maintaining an American presence in Iraq is Frederick W. Kagan, the lead architect of the current "surge" plan and scholar at the American Enterprise Institute.
"The issue is what do we do now, and are we going to deal with the fact that Iraq has become, for whatever reason, the central front in the war on terror," Kagan said. "The question of whether it would have been or whether some alternate history would have taken it another way is a matter for historians, but it isn't going to be useful for forming current strategy."
Though Kagan focused his comments on America's future in Iraq, he added that America's past involvement in the region may have attracted foreign terrorists to the country. Freeman and other critics of the war also identify this as a reason for the situation in Iraq's decline.
"We made mistakes that made it possible for [al-Qaeda] to come," Kagan said. "It's very clear what mistakes we made in the immediate aftermath of the invasion. It's not rocket science. There were mistakes that should not have been made."
The instability of Iraq because of the infiltration of foreign-born al-Qaeda terrorists has the potential to spark further conflict in the region, according to Freeman. Critics of the war argued that diplomatic dialogue with Iran and surrounding countries is necessary to a peaceful solution to the Iraqi conflict.
"Iran is scared as hell -- as is everybody else in the region -- about the possibility that the fighting in Iraq could spill over and draw it into a wider conflict," Freeman said. "There are some common interests that we could explore with Iran, and that's the only basis to proceed. There's no point in talking to people about why they should buy into your agenda; you have to find reasons why its in their interests."
Though participating experts on both sides of the Iraq war debate were unable to reach a consensus on the recent troop "surge," Miller Center officials praised last night's constructive dialogue.
"The complex questions of our time deserve civil and rational debate," said former Gov. Gerald L. Baliles, director of the Miller Center.
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