Too Late

From Reuters:

President George W. Bush met on Saturday with top U.S. military commanders to discuss the Iraq war and said he would "make every necessary change" in tactics to try to control spiraling violence there.

It is too late for a change in tactics now. I'm growing in my belief that the only viable tactic at this point is an organized, but speedy, withdrawal.

Yes, the situation in Iraq will probably worsen upon the US withdrawal. However, it will not improve while the US remains on the ground in Iraq. So long as the US is there, there will be no need for Iraqis to come to terms with each other.

And yes, once the US is out of Iraq it will in fact be more dangerous to US interests than it was during the days of Saddam Hussein. But that is already the case, and there is no reversing that now.

The two previous points are not good news. That is the fault of the President.

First, the invasion of Iraq should never have been undertaken:

• It fails to meet the traditional standards for the US invasion of a nation, and fails to meet moral standards such as Christian 'just war theory.'
• Even if the arguments about WMD were true regarding Iraq, the invasion was not justified because the alleged links to terror (Saddam and al-Qaeda links or Saddam and 9/11 links) were always spurious. There was never any serious evidence of a 9/11 link and al-Qaeda/Bin Laden had always been critical of Saddam and the only al-Qaeda presence in Iraq was in the North (the Kurdish area) in opposition to Saddam.
• If the invasion had been truly necessary, then scare tactics like 'the smoking gun may be a mushroom cloud' (then National Sec. Advisor Rice) would not have been necessary. The TRUTH would have made the case, not falsehoods.

Second, once this invasion was going to be undertaken despite traditional American principles and morality, then it should have been undertaken with troops sufficient to complete the task (if it was ever really going to be possible).

• Advice of generals should have been followed, rather than permitting the arrogant theories of Rumsfeld to rule the day.
• Precedents of peace-keeping efforts in Eastern Europe should have provided guidance to troop numbers, rather, again, that the arrogant theories of Rumsfeld.

Now, the Iraq invasion can only be deemed a failure. Continued presence will not achieve US goals. The only viable option is withdrawal.

GP