Crocker's observation does hold a lot of weight. The fear of Shiites of the return of Sunnis to power is why deBaathification was able to play out during the 2010 election in Iraq. Fear of Baathists still plays with the Shiite masses. That being said, Crocker's comment is nothing new. American commentators have been saying the same thing since the sectarian war in 2007.

A funny thought occurred to me when I was reading Amb. Crocker's "National Interest" piece.

Foreign Service officers are under constraints similar to those of military officers when it comes to criticizing their superiors in public. These constraints are proper, for the most part, but they beg a few important questions. For one, what should the rules be for praising one's superiors in public? For another, do those rules extend past the date of one's retirement? And how, after one's retirement, do rules about criticizing or praising one's superiors influence one's public commentary on affairs for which one was once responsible?

What set off all these questions was Crocker's observation about the "strategic patience" of the American people. Americans are tired of Iraq, they may not have what it takes to stay engaged there and prevent disaster, etc. Actually, it has always seemed to me that Americans have plenty of patience. To cite only the most obvious example, Americans supported containment of Communism over nearly half a century, in spite of many serious setbacks and much bloodshed, and under Presidents of both parties.

But Crocker is worried about Iraq, and whether Americans will have the patience to hang in there and keep Iraqis from killing one another all over again. He's afraid we'll lose what we gained by the 2007 surge, which he does not hesitate to call President Bush's surge. Perhaps this is just a reflex on his part; you never would have heard Gen. Marshall talking about President Roosevelt's Normandy landing or, later, about the Truman Plan, but government has changed. Be that as it may, Crocker takes no account at all of the monumental incompetence, extending over several years, that helped create the situation the surge was intended to salvage.

Much of that incompetence was George W. Bush's, as numerous writers have documented. One need not go over all the too-familiar ground -- the original invasion decision, the failure to prepare for the postwar period, Bremer, the Fallujah fiasco, "freedom is on the march" and all the rest of it. The point is that the American people noticed that the Iraq commitment was incompetently managed, also that the Iraqis themselves were notably vicious. The administration that began that commitment lost the public's confidence.

Is the public right to then lose interest in Iraq as well? It's a good question that can be argued either way. How valuable is such an argument if it ignores the fact of the public's lost confidence in the first place? Not very.

But that is what Crocker does. He preserves the good relations he presumably has with those to whom he formerly reported, offering praise for "President Bush's surge" but no word of criticism for anything else. The American people get the criticism instead. They're just not patient enough to understand our abiding interests in Iraq. Apart from being wrong as analysis, this is also unpersuasive. And it suggests unflattering things about the rules governing what public officials can say about their superiors:

Praise is good at any time. Criticism is to be avoided, even after one's retirement. If the requirement that criticism be avoided distorts one's analysis of events after one has retired, the distortion should be embraced without apology. I wonder if Gen. McChrystal could have gotten away with just blaming the American public for the difficulties he had with counterinsurgency in Afghanistan.

As a civilian expert, I served a special appointment to the State Department during the Surge, and my post-employment duties and obligations (including to criticize) are limited only by an expired one year limitation as to certain matters, and continuing matters of a security nature.

Having said that, I personally witnessed the burdens which Ambassador Crocker carried in Iraq during the surge, including a rare opportunity of sitting in his "bubble," and to deeply research much of the "hard" parts he describes. Make no mistake that he was neither a fan of the War, nor a delusional nation-builder.

He personally carried the superhuman obligations (including life and death for thousands of Iraqis and Americans) critical to serving his Country's needs. There was not a long-list of individuals who could have accomplished what he did.

I went there solely based on his publicized call for civilian help in extracting us from the debacle (tired of seeing endless photos of young dead soldiers in my morning Washington Post), and was briefed in advance by a bracing and unvarnished mission critique and directions as to both the nature of problems, and the purpose of my assignment, by one of the Ambassador's key advisers (another very wise Ambassador), just back from Baghdad.

The embedded irony of my troubleshooting assignment was that if I did what I was assigned to do---make waves and punch through gridlocks----there would be no possibility of a career. I am proud to have accomplished my mission, and, ironically, proved its success. No careerism in it.

My appreciation of both the challenges and importance of Iraq grew exponentially, as did my understand of, like he said, how hard it is. US involvement in that Region, seldom under public scrutiny, is sometimes misguided and catastrophic (Iran?), but has been continuous and substantial for the past sixty years, and will be into the next.

I don't disagree that US public interests in these "long missions" is rapidly diminishing, and probably correctly. Maybe the US public has patience, but that patience may have been squandered already, or may, at best, be greatly reduced in scope as I believe.

Noticeably, what Ambassador Crocker did not promote is either "money as a weapon," vast expenditures on "projects" of any kind, or substantial military commitments---all hallmarks of past policies under legitimate public scrutiny.

But the Atticus Finch rule---walking in a man's shoes---is essential to understand the limits and pre-conditions of successful future US relationships.

Arguing, for continued engagement, as Ambassador Crocker does, is not the same thing as arguing that past US Iraq or Afghan efforts should serve as a roadmap for future engagements, but that some important things lie along those roads, and there are valuable lessons about how to walk along them.

OK, so you want to focus on the weaknesses, but let's not forget the context and significance of the hard lessons he personally learned from decades in the region, and the importance of any highly-informed insights he offers.

Steve

I'm with you: I went to Iraq under his wing to stop the killings and waste. And work the effective transition to Iraqis.... work your way out of a job was the mantra.

But, if I'm not mistaken, Ambassador Crocker started as a career diplomat under Nixon. Writing him down as a political appointee of Bush is off base. I didn't hear him attack Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush 1, Clinton or Bush 2.

But I remember his account of negotiating breakthroughs starting to emerge in post-Soviet discussions with Iran over Afghanistan. Just as they were making progress, the Bush "axis of evil" speech hit the wires, and everything collapsed. No attack on Bush, but surely a clear explanation of some pretty significant adverse consequences.

Funny how some limited post-public figures only write on particular topics now and again, but haven't written the Big Book, yet. So you get slices.

His Big Book would probably end up as a McCrystal to some, no matter how he tried to smooth it over. But I wouldn't count a few "slice" articles as his whole story.

I think Crocker's comments were aimed at the Obama administration rather than the general public. Crocker as well as many think tankers like Anthony Cordesman at CSIS are worried that the Obama administration is focused upon withdrawal from Iraq as the be all/end all of U.S. policy there, and are afraid that forming a long-term relationship between the two countries is being neglected as a result.