I recently watched the latest United States Congressional House Committee on Foreign Affairs hearings on Iraq. A number of American congressmen questioned the State Department’s Brett McGurk, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Iraq and Iran, and the Department of Defense’s Elissa Slotkin. The congressmen asked Mr. McGurk and Ms. Slotkin perceptive, hard questions regarding the fall of Mosul and Jihadi gains in Iraq. They also questioned them about Prime Minister Maliki’s government and its failures, as well as the wisdom of insisting on the territorial integrity of a British-created state that appears perpetually dysfunctional.

Mr. McGurk and Ms. Slotkin naturally appeared a bit defensive, which is the nature of such hearings – they sat before the congressional committee because of the crisis in Iraq and the apparent failure of the United States to influence developments there positively. Virtually every answer the two provided to Congress seemed to consist either of “we are monitoring the situation and preparing options for dealing with it,” or defending the Maliki government’s actions and American support for his administration. Intelligence failures regarding the Jihadist advances in late May and early June were dismissed not really as failures, but rather something the U.S. government has been “concerned about” for some time. When Ms. Slotkin was asked about the safety of U.S. soldiers who might be embedded with Iraqi army units riddled with Sunni and Shiite extremists as well as Iranian agents, she replied that the issue was based on a “leak” from a classified report and that she could therefore not say anything about the issue.

Particularly Mr. McGurk’s statements emphasized what a difficult situation Mr. Maliki faces and how he enjoys the support of so many Iraqis. When Congressman Sherman from California questioned Mr. McGurk about whether or not Maliki has offered any real inclusiveness or concessions to the Sunnis and Kurds in Iraq, Mr. McGurk replied that he has elements of such in his political platform but “bad blood between these communities over the last 8 years” makes cooperation difficult. The Congressman did not appear pleased with the answer, derisively replying “So Maliki has some vague platitudes in his political platform that nobody believes.” Nobody except for the State Department, perhaps.

When Congressman Duncan of South Carolina questioned Mr. McGurk about the United States’ opposition to Kurdistan Regional Government oil exports, asking if taking such a position was wise given Kurdish friendliness to the United States, the risks of Kurdistan being surrounded by enemies and the fact that not a single Coalition soldier died in Iraqi Kurdistan from 2003 to 2011, the answer appeared to just repeat tired diplomatic phrases. “We have been working with the governments in Baghdad and Erbil to arrive at a solution to oil exports,” and “we support getting as much Iraqi oil, from the South and the North, to the international market as possible,” Mr. McGurk replied. “We think this needs to be done in a way that reinforces the stability of the regions in Iraq,” he added, stating that some $17 billion of Iraq’s $120 billion budget is due to Kurdistan and that it was absolutely unacceptable of Mr. Maliki to cut off payments to Kurdistan.”

Congressman Engel of New York asked why the Kurds were still being held hostage by the American backing of a strong central government in Baghdad, while Congressman Rohrabacher of California wondered why the United States does not appear open to allowing an independent Kurdistan to emerge. Congressman Sires of New York outright criticized the State Department’s ongoing dream of a strong central government in Baghdad, while another accused the U.S. administration of being “clueless.”

To all of this Ms. Slotkin and Mr. McGurk continued insisting that “a strong, capable federal government based in Baghdad” remains the best way to check the Jihadis and the Iranians’ expanding influence in the region. Mr. McGurk insisted that he remained confident that the United States can work with all the parties in Iraq to resolve problems such as the hydrocarbons dispute and the gains of the Jihadists. He conceded one point for decentralization, at least, when he advocated a decentralized federal arrangement for security forces -- wherein local forces would look after security in their own region and receive the finances to do so from the national budget. In this, it seems the State Department finally discovered at least one long standing Kurdish demand, even if it still fails to see why the Kurds and Sunnis refuse to let Baghdad control the hydrocarbon finances of the country.

Mr. McGurk’s optimism and rediscovery of some virtues of limited decentralization comes a good deal too late, I fear. For years Mr. McGurk led the State Department’s policy on Iraq and supported the Maliki government’s very centralist interpretation of the Iraqi Constitution. They gave Mr. Maliki a free pass whenever it abused its power, and in the words of Congressman Brooks from Alabama (who served militarily in Iraq) and others, the U.S. administration appears paralyzed on Iraq, afraid to do anything.”

Watching the congressional hearing, I was left with an impression very much at odds with popular notions of government in the United States: the politicians appeared straightforward, informed, critical and perceptive, while Mr. McGurk of the State Department and Ms. Slotkin of the Department of Defense appeared determined to prevaricate on just about everything, defend their past mistakes and provide anything but a straightforward, critical reappraisal of U.S. policy in Iraq. If the Kurdistan Regional Government wants a true ally in the United States, it would probably do better focusing on congressmen like the ones in this congressional hearing than the bureaucrats the Obama administration has been sending to Erbil.