Suicide bombings. Death squads. Kidnappings. Torture. Ethnic cleansing. Rogue militias. And surging violence that’s beyond the ability of the nation’s police and soldiers to control. What’s happening in Iraq today sounds increasingly like the sort of distant civil war that normally has relief groups and human rights watchers screaming for U.S. and other foreign intervention. Except in this case, the foreign forces already are there — and dying to get out. On Thursday’s Opinion pages, Clarence Page set up the likeliest scenario for an exit: The bipartisan Iraq Study Group, co-chaired by former Secretary of State James Baker and former Rep. Lee Hamilton, will find a middle ground between "cut and run" and "stay the course" that gives the White House the political cover to change tactics, declare victory and get out.
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14 Comments
Here is the administration’s chance to prove themselves. The 6 million dollar question is…will they?
It’s mighty convenient for the administration to not release the report until after the election.
You bet they won’t.What a mess Bush got us into, an Bin Laden is still out there, planning his next attack, I’m sure. That’s the one thing about him, he has the patience to wait until the time is right.Good job, Georgie!
Does it make sense that the Baker study group won’t release its findings until after the election? Remember Kissenger’s “We believe that peace is at hand” in the fall of 1972?
There was speculation on another thread here that the Baker committee recommendations are pretty contorversial: allowing a helping role for Iran and Syria. Something is up when the administration isn’t using this politically.
Hehehe, right, all!
Check this out–
BUSH: We will stay the course. [8/30/06]
BUSH: We will stay the course, we will complete the job in Iraq. [8/4/05]
BUSH: We will stay the course until the job is done, Steve. And the temptation is to try to get the President or somebody to put a timetable on the definition of getting the job done. We’re just going to stay the course. [12/15/03]
BUSH: And my message today to those in Iraq is: We’ll stay the course. [4/13/04]
BUSH: And that’s why we’re going to stay the course in Iraq. And that’s why when we say something in Iraq, we’re going to do it. [4/16/04]
BUSH: And so we’ve got tough action in Iraq. But we will stay the course. [4/5/04]
STEPHANOPOULOS: James Baker says that he’s looking for something between “cut and run” and “stay the course.”
TODAY–
BUSH: Well, hey, listen, we’ve never been “stay the course,” George.
******
EMERGENCY NOTICE TO MEMORY HOLE WORKERS !!!
We’ve always been at war with Eurasia. We’ve never been at war with East Asia.
Change all past references . . .
So much for Iraqiization and the ARI taking over:
U.S. troops take over for faltering IraqisIraq’s best trained soldiers have been unable to stem violence in Balad.Eagle news servicesBAGHDAD – U.S. forces were back patrolling the streets of the predominantly Shiite city of Balad on Tuesday after five days of sectarian slaughter killed 95 people — violence that surged out of control despite the efforts of Iraq’s best-trained soldiers.
Iraq’s 4th Army took command of the region north of Baghdad a month ago, but had been unable to stem recent attacks in Balad, where the slayings of 17 Shiite Muslim workers on Friday set off revenge killings by Shiites.
The decision to send American troops into Balad was another setback for U.S. hopes that Iraqi forces will be able to take control of security for the country. Violence has increased steadily throughout Iraq despite an increase of tens of thousands of American-trained Iraqi soldiers and police, and U.S. officials concede that their strategy of training Iraqi troops to replace Americans hasn’t worked.
I don’t know, Ben. Maybe we should just add another star to the flag and make Iraq a state. What do you think?
(light sarcasm intended)
Maybe keep the same number of stars and get rid of Texas?
DUH, the Iraqi army is a DIVERSE force that includes Shiia, Sunni and Kurds. Diversity in any military leads to mistrust and lack of cohesion.
Iraq’s problems stem from the presence of Diversity rather than a lack of Diversity and there is a lesson to be learned from that. The future of Iraq is going to require partition, that is the only solution!
Viva La Raza Blanco!!
Ben,
I have friends in Texas. Except for the political climate, they like it there. I’ve always had a soft spot for the state, too.
But it’s definitely a ponderable thought.
Josh Marshall nails it: America, meet your CEO President.
talkingpointsmemo.com
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“Stay the course. We never said ’stay the course’. Our Iraq policy is stupid. No, sorry, I didn’t mean that. I don’t know what I was thinking. As we watch what, in the Star Trek universe, they might refer to as the ’synaptic breakdown’ of the president’s Iraq policy, it’s worth remembering why President Bush, short of being forced kicking and screaming, will never and can never withdraw American forces from Iraq.
Fundamentally, it doesn’t have to do with military strategy or ideology. It has to do with coming to grips with the monumental failure he has wrought, which of course he can never do.
Setting aside the vast costs in human life, national treasure and regional stability, I see President Bush’s adventure as a failed business venture, a start-up that went bad — an analogy that, come to think of it, he could probably relate to.
A failed company can lose money for a very long time before it makes money and becomes a success. It only really fails when the investors decide that the problems aren’t transient but terminal. They decide to stop throwing good money after bad. And then that’s it.
If we look at the matter in those icy terms, that moment of reckoning came at least two years ago, certainly before the 2004 election. By then it was depressingly clear the whole matter was never going to come to a good end. But President Bush got the country to reinvest and the country has kept on doing so since then with some factor of lives, money and time.
As long as that’s the case President Bush and his supporters can keep up the increasingly ludicrous pretense that Iraq isn’t a horrendous failure but simply a work in progress that hasn’t been given the necessary time to work.
In fact, I think if you look back over the last two years, President Bush has been engaged in what amounts to a cynical game of chicken with his fellow Americans.
Think of the president as a failed or deadbeat entrepreneur (again, not such a stretch) who’s already lost his investors a ton of money. He goes back to them and says, ‘Okay, fine. You think I’m a moron and a screw-up who lost you guys a ton of money. Fine. But do you really want to finally, totally, conclusively kiss that $300 billion goodbye. You wanna just totally call it quits? Admit it’s a total loss? What about giving me just another $10 billion and maybe somehow I’ll actually pull this off? Or, since that’s just not gonna happen, a mere $10 billion to put off for six months having to write the whole thing off as a loss, having to come to grips once and for all with the fact that all the money’s gone and the whole thing’s a bust?’
That’s really what this is about. And I think we all know it pretty much across the political spectrum. In this way, paradoxically, the very magnitude of the president’s failure has become his tacit ally. It’s just such a big thing to come to grips with. And reinvesting in the president’s folly, even after any hope of recouping the money is gone, carries the critical fringe benefit of sustaining our own collective and increasingly threadbare denial.
But President Bush’s interests are not the same as the country’s. He’s maxed out, in for 100%. If Iraq is a failure, a mistake, then the same words will be written right after his name in the history books. A country, though, can take missteps and mistakes, course corrections and dead ends, and move on. We’ve done it before and we’ll do it again.
But President Bush can’t and won’t withdraw from Iraq because when he does, under the current conditions, he’ll sign the epitaph, the historical death warrant for his presidency. Unlike in the past there are no family friends to pawn the failure off on and let them take the loss. It’s all his. So he’ll keep kicking the can down the road forever.”
Ian,If diversity in a military force is a hindrance that reduces combat effectiveness like you claim, then why did the Nazis lose?
CF – very good analysis. I have read some interesting articles about why people cannot sell loser stocks – to do so would be to admit defeat. So, they “stay the course” with Enron all the way to oblivion.
“… I see President Bush’s adventure as a failed business venture, a start-up that went bad — an analogy that, come to think of it, he could probably relate to.”
Well, yeah. Duh. (No offense to you intended, CF.) Three failed Texas oil companies, and people thought GW could run a COUNTRY? He didn’t even run the state of Texas as governor. Just piddled around and played big shot, screwed up the education system, and the list of failures goes on of the things he did actually mess with.
He had no record, to speak of. So what did he run on? Evangelical principles , Daddy’s name, and $$$$$$$ from big corporations. What a guy!