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Me#1You#10
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Joined: 06 May 2004
Posts: 6503
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 Posted: Mon Aug 07, 2006 3:33 pm Post subject: NY Times Editorial: A Timetable Isn’t an Exit Strategy |
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Well, at least their defeatism targets both parties...I suppose that's progress for the Times...and so much for Murtha and Kerry's "cut and run" plan...
| Quote: | August 6, 2006
Editorial
A Timetable Isn’t an Exit Strategy
As America’s military experience in Iraq grows ever more nightmarish, it is becoming clear that President Bush’s strategy comes down to this: Keep holding to a failing course for the next 29 months and leave it to the next administration to clean up the mess.
That abdication of responsibility cannot be allowed to continue at the expense of American lives, military readiness and international influence. With the Republican majority in Congress moving in perpetual lock step behind the White House, the job of pressing the issue has been dumped in the laps of the Democrats. Unfortunately, they have their own version of reality avoidance. It involves pretending that the nightmare can be ended by adopting a timetable for a phased withdrawal of American troops.
Mr. Bush’s cheerleading encourages the illusion that it is just a matter of time and American support before Iraq evolves into a stable democracy. The Democratic timetable spins a different fantasy: that if the Iraqis are told that American troops will be leaving in stages, at specific dates, their government will rise to the occasion and create its own security forces to maintain order.
The Iraqi government has not failed to develop adequate police and military forces of its own because it lacks the incentive. It has failed to do so because it is weak and divided, because its people are frightened and because the strongest leaders in the country are the men who control sectarian militias. A phased withdrawal by itself would simply leave the American soldiers who remain behind in graver danger, and hasten what looks like an inevitable descent into civil war.
Democrats are embracing the withdrawal option because it sounds good on the surface and allows them to avoid a more far-reaching discussion that might expose their party’s own foreign policy divisions. Most of all, they want an election-year position that maximizes the president’s weakness without exposing their candidates to criticism. But they are doing nothing to help the public understand the grim options we face.
The only responsible way out of Iraq involves all the things President Bush refused to consider on the way in. That means enlisting help from some of the same Arab neighbors and European allies whose opinions and suggestions were scornfully ignored before the invasion. Getting their assistance would be a humbling experience. Americans may feel the war is going badly, but they have not been prepared to acknowledge failure.
America’s allies have an interest in not seeing Iraq turn into a hive of terrorists and a font of regional instability. However, before other nations become involved they would certainly insist on a laundry list of American concessions, from a share in war-related business for their contractors to an all-out United States push for a renewed peace process among Israel, the Palestinians and their neighbors.
A serious plan for disengagement from Iraq is not well tailored to the campaign trail. Real withdrawal will be messy and unpleasant. Even under the best of circumstances, it could well end in disaster. But the country cannot afford another election cycle of bipartisan evasions.
NY Times |
Last edited by Me#1You#10 on Mon Aug 07, 2006 4:14 pm; edited 2 times in total |
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Psycmeistr
Seaman Recruit
Joined: 02 Aug 2006
Posts: 22
Location: Saint Cloud, Minnesota
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| Posted: Mon Aug 07, 2006 4:00 pm Post subject: |
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"Cut and run!" isn't an exit strategy either. Bush never said that this was going to be a 60-minute sitcom war.
From Blackfive: | Quote: | WHERE ARE WE GOING?
POSTED BY GRIM
I've been thinking about this over the weekend. Here
are my conclusions:
Iraq:
1) Centcom this week announced the completion of a
network of border forts across the Western frontier of
Iraq. I commented on their structure at Grim's Hall:
they are brand-new forts designed to repel infantry
attacks. They have turrets that allow them to defend
every point with overlapping fields of fire. They are
designed to hold garrisons of 20-40 each, and they
will be manned by Iraqi forces.
At first, I waived the question of why what is
intended as a police station -- the Iraqi border
police are trained, in part, by our own Border Patrol
-- would be constructed as fortresses. The smugglers
in western Iraq are tribal, and dangerous; you
wouldn't want your armories overrun. Just a
reasonable, if slightly excessive, precaution, I
thought.
Still, it bothered me. The second piece of the puzzle
was provided by the Commissar.
While senior U.S. commanders have indicated that
troops will be required to stay longer in Anbar than
elsewhere in Iraq, they have already begun cutting
back forces in some smaller, less strategic towns
along the Euphrates. In Hit, Graves’s Army
battalion replaced a much bigger Marine contingent;
U.S. troops have been ordered recently to leave other
regions in western Anbar to reinforce Baghdad.
It appears that we are not going to be the force that
quells al Anbar this time.
The Central government's Iraqi Army is becoming more
and more powerful. It's taken on divison-level
transfers of authority; recently, it promised to take
on security for the whole country by year's end. The
government is led by people who had the guts to treat
with the United States in covert operations against
Saddam during the 1990s. Tom Holsinger, at Winds of
Change, states that the Sunni population has already
decreased substantially in Iraq.
So, here is my prediction for Iraq: We will
participate in subduing Baghdad, and destroying
al-Sadr. We fought the same fight in the holy city of
Najaf, and across eastern Iraq, and won it. We can do
it again in his strongholds of Baghdad. We will pass
a secure capital to Iraq as our parting gift.
But we won't do another Fallujah-style campaign in al
Anbar. When it is time to move again against al Anbar
province, Iraq's central government will do it
themselves. They now have the capability to close the
western frontier with the forts, and hold those forts
against even serious infantry attacks. This will be a
hammer-and-anvil movement, of the sort we regularly
employed in Vietnam, but for keeps. Sunni tribes will
be evicted and allowed to withdraw -- forever -- to
Jordan or Syria, or destroyed, as the Central
government prefers.
There will be no partition of Iraq. The Sunnis will
comply, or leave, or be destroyed. We have given them
the tools, and I see no reason to believe the
government of Iraq would refrain from using those
tools. I wouldn't, humane though I hope to be. It
would save lives in the long run.
The wider war:
Iran made two statements this week that suggest a
wider war. The first was its claim that Israel had to
be destroyed as a final settlement; the second, its
admission that it was providing and would continue to
provide arms to Hezbollah. Iran is now openly
committed, having confessed to acts of war against a
party already engaged in war, Israel.
The US-France peace plan that is coming into play may
restrain Israel for a time. Unless Iran reins in its
intentions, however, it cannot restrain Israel
forever. Israel cannot permit Hezbollah to be rearmed
openly, without even plausible deniability to cover
Iran's activities.
An Israeli-Iranian war is almost inevitable in the
future. Because it will be fought across Iraq's
airspace, and because Iran's strongest supporters in
Iraq are al Sadr's men, the destruction of al Sadr and
his militias is that much more an imperative for the
US and the Central Government of Iraq. There is no
avoiding it -- even if Iraq and the US don't wish to
support Israel, as they well may not, they need to
eliminate a serious threat to future stability within
Iraq.
Prognosis:
I suspect that we will one day speak of the war in
Iraq the way we speak of the Spanish Civil War -- that
is, rarely by comparison to the greater war that
followed it. Peace is not in the cards. Things are
going to get worse. Our enemies are glad to employ
terrorists, who will try to bring the war to our
homes. The wise man will prepare his sword, and the
arm that may wield it. |
_________________
Proud parent of a deployed Iraqi Freedom Soldier
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