Posted on 10/29/2003 7:13:43 AM PST by churchillbuff
It is no small irony that the neocons who denounced this magazine as “isolationist” when we argued against invading and occupying Iraq have left America more isolated than ever before in its history.
We are virtually friendless in Baghdad. Our NATO allies, Brits and Poles excepted, have left us to stew in our own juice. Russia will not help. Japan will not help. The president’s UN address, sandwiched as it was between speeches by Kofi Annan and Jacques Chirac, earned perfunctory applause, while they received ovations.
Were it not for our contributions that subsidize the salaries, expense accounts, and pensions of UN employees, America would be as isolated in the “international community” as Ariel Sharon.
Congressional Democrats and their national candidates have begun to scourge the president for Iraq and will extract a pound of flesh before granting his request for $20 billion to rebuild it.
Why are they doing this? First, because voters do not want to spend billions rebuilding Iraq when our states are cutting services and raising taxes. Second, because Democrats are full of bitterness toward President Bush for stampeding them into voting for a war in which they never truly believed. Ashamed of their own cowardice, they intend to punish him for having “misled” them.
Yet, how do they answer this question: if Senators Kennedy and Byrd and Representative Kucinich and Governor Dean could stand up to the heat and say no to war in October 2002, why couldn’t you?
The isolation of America, brought on by Bush’s succumbing to the whispers of neocon tempters about Churchillian immortality has narrowed his choices now to the same three that were left to LBJ and Nixon, once we had committed ourselves to Vietnam.
He can opt for the Aiken Solution, “Declare victory and get out.” He can pursue his “Bring ’em on!” policy and fight the Iraqi guerrillas into a second term. Or he can escalate, attacking what the neocons call the “terror masters” in their privileged sanctuaries: Syria, Saudi Arabia, and Iran. Each option entails great risks.
If he follows the mood and mindset of his countrymen and pulls U.S. troops out too rapidly, he risks a collapse into chaos and civil war, which could leave Iraq a haven of terrorists that it never was under Saddam and invite intervention by Turkey or Iran.
If he commits to winning the war and building a democracy, no matter the cost in blood and money, he imperils his presidency. For America never signed on for a postwar war. Moreover, Bush risks ultimate defeat. For there is no sign of a slackening of interest among the Islamic young for a jihad to drive the Americans from Iraq.
What of the third option: escalate and expand the war? If the president intends to pacify the Sunni Triangle and seal the roads to Syria, Saudi Arabia, and Iran, he will need far more than the 130,000 U.S. troops currently in country. A U.S. war on Syria would also inflame the Arab world and be supported by no nation save Israel. And what would the overthrow of President Assad’s regime accomplish, other than to give us 17 million sullen Syrian adoptees to go with our 50 million Iraqis and Afghans, the cost of whose day care is constantly rising?
Faced with the three options, each of which entails risks, the president appears to have decided—not to decide.
While understandable, this does not solve his problem, which is this: his present policy is unsustainable. Public support is declining, congressional support is declining, and his poll ratings are declining. If the president intends to fight this war to victory, he must begin to speak and act like a war leader, demanding sacrifices of us all, telling us how and when we can look forward to a triumphal end to the conflict. This President Bush has conspicuously failed to do.
Indeed, his actions—going back, hat in hand, to a UN he called “irrelevant” to ask for help in reconstituting Iraq, going to allies he and Rumsfeld dismissed as “Old Europe” to ask for troops, telling the nation we will transfer power to Iraqis as soon as possible—all point to the Nixonian solution of Iraqization and withdrawal. Back out of the bar with both guns blazing.
In Kevin Costner’s “Thirteen Days” about the Cuban missile crisis, Gen. Curtis LeMay says to JFK, as word comes the missiles are going operational, “Mr. President, you’ve got a problem.”
“No, General,” Kennedy retorts, “We have a problem.”
The president’s problem in Iraq is the result of an unnecessary war. But it is our problem now. Solution: admit the mistake, turn around, get out with all deliberate speed. We liberated Iraq from Saddam, but the future of Iraq is for them to decide, not us.
No, it was a reason.
Yet there wasn't any evidence of them. And there isn't now.
You're either ignorant or a liar. I'll presume it's the former and recommend you read David Kay's interim report.
Blix's boys had eight years, with a four-year break in the middle thanks to an impotent (note irony here) Clinton Administration. We've had six months, and our forces have been quite busy doing many, many things. Thinking people realize this. Then there are folks like you who keep repeating lie after lie.
What lie am I repeating? That we haven't found WMDs? That Blix, with years on the ground, couldn't find them? That's not a lie, that's the truth. To paraphrase Jack Nicholson, you apparently can't handle it.
I know that Bush administration now says there was no link between Saddam and 9/11. Therefore, why did we have to sacrifice hundreds of young Americans to invade Iraq? No link to 9/11; no WMDs. Yes, a tyrant who deserves to die (have we killed him yet? I don't know); but many countries have tyrants who deserve to be ousted - - that doesn't make it our job to do it, with the blood of young Americans.
I don't believe that is what the President said. I believe he said there wasn't any link between 9/11 and Iraq.
As for links between Iraq and Al Queda... Well, only a well meaning ostrich, with his head firmly in the sand, believes that there is no link.
I'll give you just one. (I have more if you want them) Ramzi Yousef is in jail for his part in the first WTC bombing. Ramzi Yousef is Iraqi intelligence. He was arrested in Pakistan several houses away from the Iraqi embassy (and Iraqi intelligence). Recently, Sheik Kahlid Mohammed, (Al Queda's 2nd man) was arrested. He is Ramzi Yousef's uncle.
I believe a huge mistake is made when you try to separate and identify the hornets as if they don't all swarm from the same nest. All terrorists and states that sponsor them have each other on speed dial. They swap intelligence, funds, and manpower. To say that Iraq and Al Queda are not linked together is to ignore the very real fact that they are.
So we wouldn't have to sacrifice thousands of American civilians, young and old, in the streets and skies of this country.
-btw you might consider a name change to NChamberlain...
I'm saying Bush wasn't lying recently when he said there were no links between Saddam and 9/11.
Declaring victory and getting out now would make us look bad. Declaring victory after the Iraqis have a constitution and elections makes us look good.
We don't have to stay in Iraq indefinitely, we don't have to pacify the entire country, and we don't have to seal the borders. We need stay in Iraq only long enough for them to get their own government in power so that we can turn responsibility over to them.
That's what we were told going in - - WMDs threatened us. But where are they? In Nazi Germany, there was no question of the military buildup - everybody knew it was happening, and the evidence could be displayed to the world. But we haven't found any WMDs in Iraq. Please don't stoop to calling me Chamberlain just because I point out that inconvenient fact, and ask some inconvenient questions.
No.
Post #6: WMDs was the reason, we were told, that we had to go in. Yet there wasn't any evidence of them. [Look up "Halabja" sometime.] And there isn't now. [read Kay's report]
Post #12: But we didn't have evidence of them, then, and we don't have evidence of them now.
There are absolutely tons of evidence now, and actual WMDs themselves in past years. This is not debatable.
You mean Bush could yet be proven wrong when he says there's no link. Anyway, that doesn't sound like a very good reason for sending hundreds of young Americans to die -- i.e., that a link "may yet be proven."
Nor was there any question of the build-up in Iraq. Often times in violation of UN Security Council resolutions. You've heard of them, right?
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