Spiked? Pelosi Says Iranians, Not Troops, Make Surge Success

Conservative talk radio is covering Nancy Pelosi remarks that the liberal media would probably rather avoid. Mark Levin on Thursday night and Laura Ingraham on Friday morning both seized on this tidbit from Commentary magazine's Contentions blog. Deep in an interview the House Speaker granted to the editorial board of the hometown San Francisco Chronicle, Abe Greenwald found this eyebrow-raising passage:  

Well, the purpose of the surge was to provide a secure space, a time for the political change to occur to accomplish the reconciliation. That didn’t happen. Whatever the military success, and progress that may have been made, the surge didn’t accomplish its goal. And some of the success of the surge is that the goodwill of the Iranians -- they decided in Basra when the fighting would end, they negotiated that cessation of hostilities -- the Iranians.

These remarks were not apparently included in the Chronicle itself, but were found on a Chronicle podcast of the interview, apparently 62 minutes in or so, according to Ace of Spades. We certainly didn't find any mainstream-media notice of this on Thursday or Friday. Greenwald added:

This is an inexcusable slander. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki brought the Sadrists militias to their knees in a month-long battle that enabled Iraq’s largest Sunni bloc to rejoin the government. Furthermore, when Pelosi met with Prime Minister al-Maliki in Mosul she sang quite a different tune. She had “welcomed Iraq’s progress in passing a budget as well as oil legislation, and a bill paving the way for the provincial elections in the fall that are expected to more equitably redistribute power among local officials,” and stated, “We’re assured the elections will happen here, they will be transparent, they will be inclusive and they will take Iraq closer to the reconciliation we all want it to have.”

Discounting the success of the American military, denying the accomplishments of U.S. allies, and giving the credit to our most dangerous enemies seems like an especially productive week for a Democrat on Capitol Hill.