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# Posted 9:37 PM by Ariel David Adesnik

THE STRATEGIC COST OF DISSENT IN WARTIME: The following is an exchange before the Senate Armed Services Committee as described by Jeffrey Goldberg of the New Yorker:

[Sen.] Lieberman asked what effect the resolution [disapproving of the surge] would have “on our enemies in Iraq.”

[Gen.] Petraeus said that, as a soldier, he had put himself “in harm’s way” to protect the right to free speech, but added, “A commander in such an endeavor would obviously like the enemy to feel that there’s no hope.”

Lieberman, fortified by this response, said, “A Senate-passed resolution of disapproval for this new strategy in Iraq would give the enemy some encouragement, some feeling that—well, some clear expression that the American people were divided."

“That’s correct, sir,” Petraeus said.

In that case, Lieberman said, he would “make a plea” to his colleagues on Petraeus’s behalf to defeat it. “If, God forbid, you are unable to succeed, then there will be plenty of time for the resolutions of disapproval.”

As Lieberman spoke, [Sen.] Clinton’s mask of equanimity seemed to slip for a moment, until she could assimilate the idea that Lieberman had, in essence, accused the Democratic Party of encouraging America’s enemies...

Three days after the hearing, I went to see Lieberman in his office. He was cheerful and easygoing and more convinced than usual of the essential rightness of his vision. I asked him if he thought that Democrats who voted for the resolution would truly be giving encouragement to the enemy. “The enemy believes—Ahmadinejad has said this repeatedly—that we don’t have the will anymore for a long battle,” he said, referring to the President of Iran.

When I asked him if he understood why Hillary Clinton might have reacted the way she did, he said, “I can’t explain why she did that.” Then he shook his head, apparently in sorrow.

Clearly, Goldberg has had enough of Lieberman's self-righteousness. And shouldn't a long time supporter of civil rights like Joe Lieberman know that dissent is essential to the preservation of democracy, especially during times of war?

That much is true, but it is only half the story. Both Petraeus and Lieberman are correct that there is a direct relationship between domestic dissent and enemy morale in counterinsurgency warfare. In Iraq, just as in Vietnam, the enemy's fundamental strategy is to undermine American support on the homefront, rather than defeating it on the battlefield.

The problem with Lieberman's approach (as described by Goldberg) is that it seems to allow no space at all for dissent in wartime. The result is a chain-reaction of self-righteousness in which the dissenters pose as heroic defenders of free speech while their critics launched veiled attacks at the dissenters' patriotism.

But there are other ways to think about this problem. First of all, I suspect that the insurgents are moderately capable of looking at opinion polls and discovering that Americans are deeply dissatisifed with the President's war effort. I also suspect the insurgents recognize to what extent journalists and expert observers consider the war to be a bloody stalemate (at best).

Thus dissenting resolutions in the House and Senate represent little more than a bit of extra fuel on the fire. Or one might even say they are just a byproduct of public opinion, which turned both houses of Congress over to the dissenting party.

Another drawback to the anti-dissent approach is that it rules out the possibility of constructive dissent forcing the executive branch to wage the war more effectively. Has Democratic dissent played this kind of constructive role during the war in Iraq? It's hard to say.

But one of the reasons it's so hard to say is because the debate about dissent never seems to get past the old cliches about dissent being patriotic on the one hand and encouraging the enemy on the other.

Labels: David Petraeus, Dissent, Jeffrey Goldberg, Joe Lieberman, New Yorker

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