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This week the military and diplomatic leaders in Iraq came before Congress to testify about progress. Members of select committees were able to speak and ask question to find out precisely where we war in our “war on terror”.

A number of Senator performed capably from both parties. Time focused on a single line of questioning that came at the end of a long day of hearings:

Obama hit Petraeus and Crocker with an artful series of questions about the two main threats: Sunni terrorists like al-Qaeda in Iraq, and Iran. He noted that al-Qaeda had been rejected by the Iraqi Sunnis and chased to the northern city of Mosul. If U.S. and Iraqi troops succeeded there, what was next? He proposed: “Our goal is not to hunt down and eliminate every single trace of al-Qaeda but rather to create a manageable situation where they’re not posing a threat to Iraq.” Petraeus said Obama was “exactly right.”

Obama asked Crocker about Iran: We couldn’t expect Iran to have no influence in Iraq, could we? “We have no problem with a good, constructive relationship between Iran and Iraq,” Crocker replied. “The problem is with the Iranian strategy of backing extremist militia groups and sending in weapons and munitions that are used against Iraqis and against our own forces.” Obama then pursued Barbara Boxer’s previous line of questioning: If Iran is such a threat to Iraq, why was Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad greeted with open arms and apparently a lot of official kissing in Baghdad last month? “A visit like that,” Crocker said, avoiding the question, “should be in the category of a normal relationship.”

At which point, Obama dropped the hammer. The current situation in Iraq was “messy,” he said. “There’s still violence; there’s still some traces of al-Qaeda; Iran has influence more than we would like. But if we had the current status quo and yet our troops had been drawn down to 30,000, would we consider that a success?” Crocker, semi-speechless, chose to misinterpret the question, saying a precipitous drawdown to 30,000 troops would be disastrous. But Obama’s question was more diabolical. He was saying, Hey, al-Qaeda’s on the run, and Iran is probably more interested in harassing the U.S. military than having another war with Iraq. How much better does the situation need to be for us to leave? He had taken Joe Lieberman’s dart and beaten it into a plowshare.

When General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker took the stage before the Senate, and then the House there were a few important notes. The first was that neither was equipped to answer the fundamental questions of the war; answers about why we are there, why we’re not leaving, and our fiscal policies are the territory of Bush, Rice and others. But Petraeus and Crocker have provided generally honest appraisals about what is happening, and the course they believe we should take.
Because of their limited context it was difficult to leverage any pressure for bigger answer - Senator Russ Feingold expressed his dismay he only has the general and ambassador to question for that very reason. Obama’s point was important, then, because is was one of the few moments when we did get a bigger answer than Petraeus and Crocker could give. But leading them to agree that we had reasonably met the measures of success we’d accept as a premise for future drawing down right now, it’s a reasonable inference that there is a separate agenda at work in Iraq.
When Secretary Gates announced yesterday that that military would not reduce its size this year, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said:

The president still doesn’t understand that America’s limited resources cannot support his limitless war. Let me be clear: This is not a so-called troop pause. With today’s announcement, the president has signaled to the American people that he has no intention of bringing home any more troops.

Instead he is leaving all the tough decisions to the next administration. President Bush has an exit strategy for only one man, himself, on January 20, 2009.

Perhaps there is another reason, more or less noble. But at least we have an idea why we’re not staying, thanks to this week’s hearings.

General David Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker, originally uploaded by Andrew Gascho.