“I think we should look to winding up the mission.” [Chicago Daily Herald, 3/19/07]
“If the report comes back bad we need to make changes, we need to adjust the strategy, absolutely.” [Chicago Daily Herald, 7/11/07]
You see, Concerned Kirk is concerned, but not enough to actually do something to stop this war. He voted against the proposal to redeploy troops by April 8th.
The Trib editorializes that there hasn’t been enough progress citing some military progress that is actually quite dubious.
Iraqi leaders were supposed to seize this moment of reduced violence to forge a united Iraq. Instead they’re as divided as ever. Judging from this report and political conditions on the ground in Iraq, American soldiers are buying time for Iraqi leaders to do absolutely nothing.There was a flicker of progress a few days ago, for instance, a potential deal on divvying up oil profits, one of the most important benchmarks demanded of the Iraqis by Congress and the president.
Then it fell apart. On Wednesday, just a day before the release of the White House report, Kurdish leaders, who had earlier backed the law, gave it a shove over the cliff. So much for political reconciliation.
That’s not the only political failure, just the most publicized. The government has also failed to pass a vital law easing restrictions on some former Baath party members. And it has failed to establish a provincial elections law so that local elections can be held.
This is a civil war. The solution is that someone wins by force or a political solution is created. For a political solution to work everyone has to get something they want. The question no one seems to want to ask this administration is what is it that we have that the Shiites want in Iraq that they cannot get through winning a civil war?
Nothing and we are arming them. The solution will happen with us there or not there and we don’t have a political solution we can offer that gives the Shiites anything they want. We are useless other than to speed along the Shiite victory with American troops. The President is horribly confused if he thinks the problem is that another Afghanistan Pakistan. The Shiites and the traditional Sunnis don’t like Al Qaeda in Iraq and they will kill them There is no Mullah Omar there.
He’s busy anyway. In Pakistan, where Al Qaeda is regrouping. How about a surge there?
July 13th, 2007 at
Petreaus himself says that a counter insurgency is 80% political and 20% military.
I disagree that, “The solution will happen with us there or not there and we don’t have a political solution we can offer that gives the Shiites anything they want,” I think a solution could happen with us there that we can live with but the “solution” without us wouldn’t be something we could live with.
Today the SJ-R brought up shades of 1965 today and suggested we get out now to avert a disaster. Well, we pulled out of Vietnam and got genocide and refugee crisis. Britain screwed up the exit from India and we now have two powers with nuclear bombs who really, really hate each other as a result of partition. I would argue that if we reach a consensus that we must get out, then someone needs to be thinking how we do it without the disaster that somehow the SJ-R overlooks.
Also, check out the WSJ editorial from the guys at Brookings. Lot’s of realistic stuff in there.
July 13th, 2007 at
So what are we offering the Shiites that they want with our continued presence? Petreaus says it 80 percent political and that’s not good news given the politics suck.
I don’t think it matters if we are there or not, the disaster is underway.
What are our interests in Iraq at this point? Key is ensuring we don’t have an Al Qaeda outpost–it doesn’t appear that most Sunnis and certainly not the Shiites are willing to allow them to have a base of operations.
The situation on the Turkish border only puts us in between a NATO ally and Kurds.
What are we accomplishing? Slowing down the genocide? It’s not clear our presence even does that since we are equipping the Shiite government with training and weapons.