Andy McCarthy is a great prosecutor — and a great writer on subjects related to the legal treatment of terrorists. But I fear he is misguided in his critique of American counterinsurgency strategy, which has been so effective in Iraq and can be effective again in Afghanistan, and in his larger contempt for what he calls (with mocking capitalizations) the “Islamic Democracy Project.”
Personally I side with President Bush, who realized that we had no choice but to shake up the sclerotic Middle East in our own interest. I have been greatly encouraged to see how nascent democracy has begun to take hold in Iraq and, to a lesser extent, in Afghanistan; I see very little evidence that, as McCarthy has it, “we are building sharia states hostile to American interests.”
But rather than debate our broader Middle East policy with McCarthy, I want to offer a short comment on his attempt to attack General David Petraeus for the canard — which I thought I and others had already shot down — that the general is somehow anti-Israel. In National Review, McCarthy writes in high dudgeon about a “surpassingly foolish statement in which Gen. David Petraeus cast Israel as the source of all America’s woes in the Middle East.”
His basis for this claim is an already discredited blog item by terrorist groupie Mark Perry. But McCarthy claims not to be convinced by Petraeus’s statements that he didn’t say what Perry claims he said. He insists that I am spinning away Petraeus’s true views, which are exposed on page 12 of the Central Command “posture statement” submitted to Congress. That statement lists 11 “cross-cutting challenges to security and stability,” including “insufficient progress toward a comprehensive Middle East peace.”
There is one whole paragraph on Israel in this 56-page report, and here is what it has to say in its entirety:
The enduring hostilities between Israel and some of its neighbors present distinct challenges to our ability to advance our interests in the AOR. Israeli-Palestinian tensions often flare into violence and large-scale armed confrontations. The conflict foments anti-American sentiment, due to a perception of U.S. favoritism for Israel. Arab anger over the Palestinian question limits the strength and depth of U.S. partnerships with governments and peoples in the AOR and weakens the legitimacy of moderate regimes in the Arab world. Meanwhile, al-Qaeda and other militant groups exploit that anger to mobilize support. The conflict also gives Iran influence in the Arab world through its clients, Lebanese Hizballah and Hamas.
That’s it. Even if you discount everything that Petraeus has publicly said on the topic, and you look simply at the text of this statement, I am puzzled to see how McCarthy can infer that Petraeus “cast Israel as the source of all America’s woes in the Middle East.” The statement does not blame Israel for the lack of progress on peace negotiations, much less for “all America’s woes” in the region. It simply doesn’t. Suggesting it does is to assume — as the lawyers like to say — “facts not in evidence.”
