These comments are mostly unrelated, except for a frustration with both those who would condemn the Iraqi people to a future likely to be worse than the present and those who say the right things but so far have not been able to do them right.
1. Why did it take so long to get started on the surge and the new strategy and tactics? These things are the last hope we have in Iraq. Why did it take so long to start them? You should not announce a new strategy and then wait a month or more to begin implementing it. That just gives the enemy (enemies) time to get ready. In fact, it lets them start first. I feel sorry for General Petraeus. Good generals need good support. .
2. Does Bush’s new strategy have a chance of success? The ideas seem right, but will that be enough? More importantly, will what happens outside of Iraq make what happens in Iraq irrelevant? Amir Taheri, an Iranian-born journalist based in Europe, says this in the New York Post:
"[General] Petraeus still faces a number of major problems - the most important one being uncertainty in Washington.
There is little doubt that many elements within America's political elite want the United States to fail, for a variety of motives. …
Portraying Iraq as a failure isn't hard. To pronounce Petraeus' mission a failure, all that defeat-mongers in Washington need is one car bomb a day and one suicide attack a week.
Uncertainty in Washington will encourage the Iraqi protagonists to hedge their bets, rather than throw all their weight behind Petraeus' mission. …
When House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says that she does not consider Iraq to be ‘a war to win, but a situation to manage,’ Iraqis otherwise likely to side with Petraeus will think twice. …
The insurgents, the al Qaeda terrorists and the Shiite militias know that they can't win in military terms. What they hope for is to win politically – that is to say, ensuring defeat and humiliation for the United States. …
With a combination of intelligence, patience and determination, Petraeus can win in Baghdad.
The battleground where his chances do not appear as good is Washington. The United States today has become home to a veritable industry of defeat – producing books, TV documentaries, research papers, intelligence analyses and feature movies destined for a growing market. Almost every day, some article assuming that the United States has already been defeated in Iraq, and recommend measures to deal with the consequences of defeat."
3. Democrats and liberals have been trying to portray Iraq as Vietnam since before the United States and its allies went into Iraq. They may eventually succeed. Laws passed by the Democratic-controlled Congress in 1973 and 1974 stopped President Ford from keeping the promises the United States made to help the South Vietnamese in the event of a North Vietnamese attack. Hillary Clinton is now suggesting that we "take money away from [the Iraqi] troops" to threaten the Iraqi government.
4. Finally, what would happen if the United States and its allies withdraw precipitously from Iraq? Edward Luttwak in Tuesday’s New York Times, says our "disengagement should actually reduce the violence":
"Were the United States to disengage, both Arab Sunnis and Shiites would have to take responsibility for their own security (as the Kurds have doing been all along). Where these three groups are not naturally separated by geography, they would be forced to find ways to stabilize relations with each other. …
In any case, it is time for the Iraqis to make their own history."
In 1971, during his debate with John O’Neill on the Dick Cavett show, John Kerry said this:
"What we say is the troops can be withdrawn faster. What we say is the killing can stop tomorrow, and it can stop if the president of the United States will set a date certain for the withdrawal for all United States combat and advisory troops form South Vietnam."
Five days before the Khmer Rouge marched into Phnom Penh in April of 1975, New York Times reporter Sydney Schanberg wrote that for the ordinary people of Cambodia "it is difficult to imagine how their lives could be anything but better with the Americans gone." *
And then came the reeducation camps, the boat people, and the killing fields. The liberals and the Democrats were so wrong about Vietnam and Cambodia. Do they really think Iraq will be better with us gone? Or is it just something they have to believe, or at least say they believe, to justify their policy of leaving?
--------------------
* Quoted in Carl Gershman, "Indochina & Left-Wing Escapism," The American Spectator, September 1979, p. 7.
Recent Comments