This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Wednesday, September 12th, 2007.

I'm Caleb Brown.

General David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker have told Congress how they feel the surge in Iraq is progressing.

So what now for U.S. involvement there?

Christopher Preble, the Cato Institute's Director of Foreign Policy Studies, says political

reconciliation in Iraq is no closer now that it was

a year ago.

And though some violence may have diminished, that itself may indicate a troubling turn

of events.

General David Petraeus says,

bottom line, the military objectives of the surge

are, in large measure, being met. Well, the in large measure being met?

Well, the in large measure is an important caveat.

We'll get to that in a minute.

From my perspective, for the military objectives,

the military strategy was intended to achieve a particular purpose or at least to

facilitate the political reconciliation in Iraq that has not occurred and still since the surge has not occurred and I think in fairness to

General Petraeus and to men and women in uniform there is very little that the

U.S. military can do or for that matter that diplomats like Ambassador Crocker can do to

force reconciliation among the various parties inside of Iraq and so it was at some level

of unfair to expect the surge to have done that.

And that problem is going to persist.

...