Krauthammer comes up with a very interesting option, and since it generally comports with what I've been thinking about in the last 3 weeks, it deserves consideration:
What is missing is a fourth alternative, both as a threat to Maliki and as an actual fallback if the surge fails. The Pentagon should be working on a sustainable Plan B whose major element would be not so much a drawdown of troops as a drawdown of risk to our troops. If we had zero American casualties a day, there would be as little need to withdraw from Iraq as there is to withdraw from the Balkans.
We need to find a redeployment strategy that maintains as much latent American strength as possible, but with minimal exposure. We say to Maliki: Let us down, and we dismantle the Green Zone, leave Baghdad and let you fend for yourself; we keep the airport and certain strategic bases in the area; we redeploy most of our forces to Kurdistan; we maintain a significant presence in Anbar province, where we are having success in our one-front war against al-Qaeda and the Baathists. Then we watch. You can have your Baghdad civil war without us. We will be around to pick up the pieces as best we can.
US interests in the Middle East fall in two principal areas: maintaining the flow of petroleum (largely from Saudi Arabia) and destroying AlQuaeda (and its various subsidiaries.) If you like you can reverse those priorities.
Either way, a US military presence should be maintained in the Middle East.
But as Krauthammer points out, our Armed Forces don't necessarily have to paste targets on their backs while wandering about in Baghdad.
HT: Malkin
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2 comments:
Dad, anything that helps in Iraq is welcome.
I have another take on all of it.
It's the Britney Spears analogy.
We hear day in day out, how horrible things are in Iraq. We constantly hear the term.....ESCALATION.
This is leftist propaganda. At some point, like a CONSTANTLY PLAYED Britney Spears song, this PROPAGANDA takes root. A little root or a lot of root.
We lose 25 young black men to murder every day in America. And......chirp chirp chirp crickets.
My youngest bro and my oldest nephew have both served in Iraq. My nephew was wounded USMC and has won several medals.
All having been said, this has become more about the media and politics than anything. None in the mainstream media or DEM party are seeking a victory for US/U.S. or THEM...Iraqi's.
Agreed it's a media/political circus.
But as I've stated, this is partially GWB's fault; his delineation of the mission has morphed, and morphed again.
He is now in an impossible situation of his own creation: he states (or implies) that US troops will remain there until Iraq is "orderly" (or some equivalent thereof.)
Huh? Hell--Detroit is "disorderly," as you allude to--New Orleans is even worse.
Assess our interests: 1) preserve oil and 2) avoid cataclysm in the Middle East.
That doesn't require the military to be a "cop shop" w/Tomahawks.
Thanks, by the way, to your brother and nephew. They've done more than their share.
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