Senator Joseph Lieberman, the so-called independent Democrat, used his questioning to promote aggression against Iran.
“Are Iranians still training and equipping extremists who are going back into Iraq and killing American soldiers?” he asked.
Petraeus answered in the affirmative, but provided no evidence to back his claim. He merely asserted that so-called “special groups,” an American-invented term meant to designate Iranian-directed militias in Iraq, were the only ones who would have the capability to target American forces with sophisticated rockets and explosively formed projectiles.
Lieberman continued, “Is it fair to say that Iran was responsible for killing “thousands... or rather hundreds of American soldiers” in Iraq. Petraeus responded: “I do believe that is correct.”
Finally, Lieberman praised Maliki’s ordering of the offensive against Basra, declaring that it showed that he would “not tolerate the Iranian-backed militias essentially running wild and controlling the south of the country.”
Crocker responded that this was “exactly the signal the operation has sent within Iraq and hopefully throughout the region.”
That this is patent nonsense seemed to bother no one. Sadr’s followers in Basra and elsewhere have less support from and relations with Iran than the Shia parties supporting Maliki, including the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, whose own Iranian-trained militias fought alongside government troops against the Sadrist Mahdi Army.
The same theme was repeated over and over again in the testimony, with Crocker warning repeatedly about Teheran’s “malign influence” within Iraq and its pursuit of a supposed “Lebanonization strategy” aimed at turning elements of the Shia community into an Iranian proxy force.
It was clear that new lies are being fashioned to justify yet another war, as Washington fears its objectives of subordinating Iraq and its oil wealth to US strategic interests could be lost because of the influence of a regional rival.
An occupation without limit and a war without end. This is the message coming out of Britain and the US following the recent uprising by Iraqis.
According to a classified document obtained by the Daily Telegraph, the US wants Iraq to accept that there will be no time limit to the occupation.
The US is planning to pressure the United Nations to change its mandate to allow foreign troops to "conduct military operations in Iraq and to detain individuals when necessary for imperative reasons of security".
This demand indicates that the US has lost faith in its Iraqi allies following a mutiny when the Iraqi army attempted to crush the resistance in Basra.
Now the US and Britain have frozen plans to "draw down" their troops in Iraq.
In the last week US troops have been engaged in fierce battles in Baghdad despite a call by rebel cleric Moqtada al-Sadr for his fighters to stand down. In one incident US helicopter gunships fired anti-tank missiles into dense neighbourhoods.
John McCain is no warmonger, he tells us. More than most, he knows the agony of war in a deeply personal way.
Why, then, does he persist in portraying Iraq, Afghanistan and the "Global War on Terror" as primarily military problems?
Does he truly believe America and its allies could win all three if only we keep a stout heart and properly apply our superior force?
American voters found out this week when General David Petraeus testified before two senate panels on "progress in Iraq." As the ranking Republican on the Armed Services Committee, McCain stood front and center, supporting General Petraeus in selling a continuing American occupation.
McCain's bid to become president rests heavily on how American voters come to view the occupation in November, and on the way they answer a number of largely unvoiced questions about how well McCain would defend the country against a host of widely misunderstood foreign threats.
For all his undoubted courage and long years of experience, has McCain learned to think beyond military definitions of progress, success, victory and defeat?
Can he now see the world in larger, more realistic terms, as a long line of American war heroes from George Washington to Dwight Eisenhower learned to do? In other words, does John McCain display the broader judgment a president needs to have?
We should ask the same questions of the two Democratic contenders, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, both of whom were among the senators grilling Petraeus. But McCain presents an extreme case of a military mindset Americans need to confront.
A hotshot Navy flier and the son and grandson of four-star admirals, McCain learned too well to think the way a warrior must think: Fight to win. Never give in. Never turn tail. Or, as he says of Iraq, "We're in it, now we must win it."
These are sentiments many of us can understand and even admire in certain situations. But what do they bring us in Iraq, where even the CIA says the ongoing war helps al-Qaeda and their allies recruit increasing numbers of militants and sympathizers throughout the Islamic world?
McCain warns withdrawing our military forces would only embolden al-Qaeda. It would, but their hubris would be short-lived.
Leave it to the Sunni tribesmen General Petraeus now pays to fight al-Qaeda in Iraq. Months before America escalated its troop levels, these Sunnis had turned against the mostly foreign jihadis.
Days after American troops leave, the tribesmen would find it relatively easy to isolate and destroy these other unwelcome guests.
McCain worries that withdrawing our military forces would weaken America's ability to get other countries to do what Washington wants.
On this, he is half-right, depending on exactly what Washington wants. Military bases for American troops and favorable oil contracts for American and allied corporations would become more difficult to impose.
But if Washington could ever learn to reduce its reliance on the global projection of military force, most Americans would find the world a far more welcoming place. Just look at all the business American firms now do in Vietnam and China.
Vietnam is key to McCain's thinking. Much to his credit, he has made his personal peace with the Vietnamese. But, in his military mind, he still thinks America could have and should have won our ill-advised adventure in Southeast Asia.
How much further would he have escalated that incredibly bloody war had he been president?
Who knows? But, given the widespread opposition to the war among Americans at the time, he would have had to destroy any pretense of constitutional rights on the home front.
And for what? As most scholars now agree, no conceivable escalation would have defeated Vietnam's long-standing fight for independence from foreign rule, whether against the Chinese, the French or us.
As we will hear this week, General Petraeus understands the importance of political and ideological forces far better than does McCain.
Petraeus has even publicly scolded Iraqi politicians for not working harder to reconcile their differences.
Still, he will not give up the counterproductive military fight. Like McCain, the Princeton-educated general stands steadfast in his refusal to see the obvious.
No matter how cleverly we apply our overwhelming force, foreign occupation breeds its own opposition in Iraq just as it did in Vietnam.
This is a lesson the gung-ho military mind cannot seem to grasp, which is why Americans would do well to look elsewhere for a president.