Either it's a tragedy or it s'wonderful. Take your choice. Better yet, s'tragedy--in honor of all those who mispronounce "strategy"--and in dubious honor of all those who misuse it. Like our president.
I'll give Dubya this: I never thought the words "mistakes" and "mine" and "responsibility" would pass his lips in the same sentence . . . and yet they did last night during his speech revealing the new US strategy in Iraq. Not that his owning up to his errors made (or makes) a difference. I would be thrilled if Dubya's plan to put 20,000 more US troops in harm's way would help end the Iraq debacle--especially if it ended it favorably for the US. But I am not sanguine about its chances for success.
More troops with greater presence equates (to me and to many others more expert in military affairs than I) to more anger on the part of the insurgents . . . and more targets for them to hit . . . and more strife and needless bloodshed, not less.
In Iraq, we are in position not unlike the US's position vis-a-vis slavery in the early 18th century as analyzed by Thomas Jefferson. When you are riding a tiger, you don't want to hang on, but you cannot bring yourself to let go. There is deadly danger in any option you choose once you've foolishly put yourself in the position in which you find yourself.
A wholesale withdrawal would only embolden the terrorists who want to harm us. Staying only irritates those terrorists further. (Besides, they've not been able to solve their problems and settle their feuds for thousands of years . . . what the heck made us think we could do it for them?) An escalation that is more of a slow motion wave than a genuine surge will only prolong the agony. Too bad we can't call a mulligan and start over by not going into Iraq in the first place. [Gershwin wins again: You say to-may-to, I say to-mah-to . . . let's call the whole thing off!--Ed.]
I grieve for our troops, who are struggling valiantly to do the impossible. If they succeed, all they do is breed resentment against the US. If they fail, they die. And I confess to not having any ideas at all about what to do. Well, that's not exactly true. If we aren't going to withdraw immediately, retrench, get new people into office in 2008, and go about rebuilding America's reputation in the world, we need to go in with overwhelming force and stomp out every last one of the terrorists in Iraq now. Not that we'll succeed. Terrorists are like cockroaches in that for every one you see, there are 10 you don't. But if we can overwhelm the visible terrorism long enough to get out (relatively) cleanly and let the Iraqis deal with their own problems, we've made the best of a very bad situation.
God help me, I am beginning to think we need Douglas MacArthur and Curtis LeMay to come back from the dead and throw a few nukes around. And that scares me most of all.
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