Stay the course?

Experts Advise Bush Not To Reduce Troops

 

President Bush heard a blunt and dismal assessment of his handling of Iraq from a group of military experts yesterday, but the advisers shared the White House's skeptical view of the recommendations made last week by the bipartisan Iraq Study Group, sources said.

The three retired generals and two academics disagreed in particular with the study group's plans to reduce the number of U.S. combat troops in Iraq...

 

The military experts met with Bush, Vice President Cheney and about a dozen aides for more than an hour. The visitors told the officials that the situation in Iraq is as dire as the study group had indicated but that alternative approaches must be considered, said one participant in the meeting. In addition, the experts agreed that the president should review his national security team, which several characterized as part of the problem.

 

Is this more of the same?  That's the way it seems to me.

 

If not withdraw, then what?  The 'experts' did not agree on sending more troops, although some believe this is the proper action.  But if not more, then what is the possible gain to be achieved from the status quo? 

 

This group of experts still said, according to the White House, that the war was winnable.  Here is where I believe they are wrong.  The war in Iraq is lost.  It is lost now.  Democracy, in any reasonable sense of the word, has not been established.  Civil war has erupted.  Broader regional conflict is very much a realistic concern.

 

I can understand the difficulty.  Americans do not like to admit failure and defeat.  Additionally, it is hard to imagine how things will improve if the US were to begin withdrawl.  The responsibility for the failure of the Iraq war lies not in its managment, but in the decision to start it.  The failure began with the invasion.

 

Now we are left only with the prospects of managing the failure.  The best the US can hope for is to provide the Iraqis the opportunity/responsibility to manage their life after Saddam- who was, without question, an evil dictator.  It will be ugly, but it is ugly now.  Continued US presence will not make it better.

 

The fault for the current situation lies with the US government.  The only hope for its solution lies with the Iraqi people.  This is the harsh reality that we in the US must face and deal with.  We'd be better off had the government not made the terrible decision to invade (and had not a majority of Americans gone along with it and confirmed it in the '04 election), but we can do nothing about that now, except move forward.

 

GP