Speaking purely for myself — a person who thought Iraq was The Wrong Thing To Do, but who also feels that we must Take Responsibility For The Mess We Created — I find brilliantly written posts like these fascinating:
Donklephant: Waiting For The Other Joe
RightWing NutHouse: Iraq: Quit or Commit
And just to give you another target to shout at (me), I’ve totally lost my internal compass on this. As recently as June, I argued vehemently that we can’t simply abandon the Iraqi people to the chaos that was sure to come. Today, I find myself wondering whether it’s possible to salvage anything at all for the Iraqis from this disastrous situation … and I’m mad as hell.
About the only thing I do know is “stay the course” is not an option, unless one subscribes to some twisted lemming theory.
What do you think? Is it time to stick a fork in it and call it done?
Update: If lemmings could talk:
Asked if the continued violence in Iraq was a sign the American strategy was not working there, Bush said, “If I didn’t think the Iraq policy would work, I’d change it.” He said U.S. military commanders in Iraq believed the current U.S. strategy “will work.”
Sure, it’s not like we succesfully removed Saddam and put him on trial, held elections with huge turnout, seated a gov’t, established a constitution by referendum, held another election with even bigger turnout, trained 275,000 troops, and face no major strategic military threats to the current government. And it’s not like Iraqis now enjoy more political freedom, according to the Index of Political Freedom, than any other countries in the region excepting Israel and Lebanon.
Because if we’d accomplished all that, surely it would be hailed a success.
TallDave —
Why… you’re quite right! And since things are so wonderful, why… then… our troops should all be home any day now. Right?
(editing to close the [snark] tag)
Sorry, TD — that was far stronger than I usually respond here. What I should have said is that the civil disorder there is paralyzing the government; that there are very few Iraqi troops trained to the point of independent function; that the Sunni v Shi’ite rifts are opening doors to external players with grudges and ambition.
All is not well, and as far as I can tell (from here, obviously, and not there in a trench or bunker or tank), it’s not improving. Nor for the citizens, and not for their government. The only semi-bright spot I’ve seen is that American troops are far less of a target nowadays, as the focus on one another between the sects picks up speed. We’re superfluous.
Best plan might be to dress up our military in Iranian uniforms… let the Iraqis turn their anger on Iran & take care of *that* mess for us while we slowly back away..
Smukke, I like that. But we’d have to be vewwy vewwy quiet…