Lately I’ve been reading Opinion Journal more frequently and yesterday I stumbled upon this excellent piece. Not Your Mama, this is for you as promised 
:
There is a serious and widening disconnect between the timetables that commanders are using to guide their actions in Iraq and those being demanded by politicians in Washington.
…Inevitably, since suicide attacks will still be occurring in Iraq in September, many commentators and politicians will write off the surge as a failure. Many are already doing so, even though the Baghdad Security Plan is barely three months old and the fourth extra U.S. brigade has only recently arrived.
…An article in USA Today reported on a Pentagon-funded study which confirms what military historians already know–an average insurgency can run for a decade, but most fail in the end. Translation: If we’re going to be successful in Iraq, we’re going to have to make a long-term commitment.
…Most Americans seem resigned to that fate. In fact many think that the civil war has already begun, and we can’t or shouldn’t do anything about it. We hear all the time that “we have no business getting into the middle of someone else’s civil war”–often from the very same people who in the 1990s were (rightly) urging that we get involved in the civil wars of the former Yugoslavia or who today (rightly) urge us to get involved in the civil war in Sudan.
I don’t know about that “(rightly)” part refering to Sudan but anyways…
…If U.S. troops were to pull out anytime in the foreseeable future, the probable result would not be (as so many advocates of withdrawal claim) that Iraqis would “get their act together” and take care of their problems themselves. The far more likely consequence would be an all-out civil war. Not only would this be a humanitarian tragedy for which the U.S. would bear indirect responsibility, but it would also be a catastrophe for American interests in the region. If we are seen as the losers in Iraq, al Qaeda would be seen as the winner.
That ought to be “lovely”. The problem is that the majority of the American people aren’t listening to the Elephants anymore and they don’t care about what they have to say. It’s unfortunate that the Elephants screwed up many times in the last few years. Meanwhile Donkeys will keep proposing their symbolic bills, BAM they’ll get rejected and as we approach 2008, the possibility of a Donkey president will get higher and higher.
SudaneseThinker
SudaneseThinker
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Actually I DO agree there are arguments for staying in Iraq. That’s the irony of the whole thing. Our military has been so badly mismanaged up to recently that is probably no longer possible.
I did not support the initial invasion for many reasons and I’m not going to write a book on it here but, the fact that I knew full well the situation would become much of what it has become and that America would not want or be capable of sustaining the effort was one of those reasons. Sometimes it truly sucks to be proven correct.
You are also pretty much on target about “symbolic bills”. That is exactly what they are and even the people who write them know this. No one in their right mind “really” supports a date-certain pullout and knows no bill with set target dates will ever be passed. The point is multifold but chiefly two things: applying pressure for more oversight and to be perfectly honest, appeasing the far-left faction. You write the bill, it gets rejected, you can say “see, we tried”.
The reality is this is not a situation that is “manageable” in any publicly acceptable sense of the word in anything short of years, probably decades and it is highly unlikely that support for such a course could be raised in either political camp. The worst case scenario would be another large scale attack on US soil in some misguided attempt to keep us engaged in the war in which event there would be a massive and widespread call for…something I hope not to see in my lifetime.
Toss in the fact that our administration had severely cutback our military just prior to this invasion (ie: base closures, budget cuts, decreasing the number of active duty personnel, etc.), we simply do not have the armed forces to continue the current strategy for any length of time and with our track record being what it has been, little to no hope of recruiting more to keep things going.
Those aren’t Donkey/Elephant dependant issues, the problem will be the same regardless of which party holds office. The difference will be in what if any assistance will be offered when we do leave. That also is not strictly a partisan issue….it depends more on the particular individual elected.
It is going to be a humanitarian tragedy, it already is and yes, we are responsible for it. Every single politician on both sides knows this as well and none of them want this fiasco to land on their watch. The Dems apply pressure via bills-that-will-never-pass, the Republicans apply pressure mostly behind the scenes as they publicly claim “support” for the war but don’t kid yourself, there is tremendous pressure from Republicans for Bush to get us out of there before the next election.
The truth is far more complex than the “Republicans are tough on terror”/”Democrats want to cut and run” tags that have been attached to both parties.
Hmmmm… thanks for your elaborated comment Not Your Mama.
Me appreciate it
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