Decades to come
I have criticized Gen. Petraeus before — he’s a good Bushie when he needs to be — but credit him now at least for being candid:
The head of US forces in Iraq, General David Petraeus, has told the BBC that fighting the insurgency is a “long term endeavour” which could take decades.
This is likely true. It may or may not be the latest spin from the White House (check with Tony Snow, who shamelessly self-contradicts with the best of them, an even better Bush is he), but there is no doubt that it would take a long time to triumph, in any real way, over the insurgency in Iraq. Petraeus’s Northern Ireland analogy is telling.
Of course, this begs the question of whether or not the American people would support, such a seemingly endless endeavour, a war without end. It almost goes without saying that they would not. And nor would their representatives, more and more of whom are looking for a way out sooner rather than later — beyond those who have been calling for getting out for a long time.
Does it matter to Bush? Perhaps not. He’ll be gone by January 2009. Unless withdrawal (or redeployment, call it what you will) takes place on his watch, and one suspects that it will not, it will fall to his successor to make the call. Withdrawal is the better option, but one can imagine a Republican president following Petraeus’s lead and hunkering down for a decades-long struggle, or at least until some subsequent president changes course and does what should have been done already.
All the more reason to vote Democratic next year.
And let me make this observation: In Petraeus’s view, the Iraq War is very much an insurgency war. Yet the Iraqi insurgency exists only because the United States launched a war against Iraq and, through gross mismanagement of that war, unleased what has come to be an insurgency that would require a decades-long commitment to a subsequent war. In other words, the United States is responsible for the insurgency against which it is now waging war.
To which there are two proper responses:
1) The U.S. never should have invaded Iraq or at least never should have waged that initial war so badly. One reaps what one sows, and this is no exception.
2) The U.S. should get out of Iraq now so that the insurgency has no obvious enemy against which to fight. The Sunnis could wage war against the Shiites, and vice versa, which has been happening for some time — there is civil war in Iraq, alongside the insurgency war — but it is quite possible that U.S. withdrawal would stimulate progress in terms of peace, security, and stable government, not anarchy. The more moderate elements on both sides could, in the long run, prevail.
Regardless, though, what good is the U.S. doing by remaining, by continuing to be an occupying force? Fighting al Qaeda? But al Qaeda will survive the war no matter the outcome — and, indeed, the U.S. occupation is only making al Qaeda stronger, encouraging terrorism more broadly, and sapping American resources that could be deployed elsewhere. Supporters of the war may think the U.S. has al Qaeda tied down in Iraq, but the reality is that al Qaeda and its allies have the U.S. tied down in what the top U.S. commander acknowledges would be a decades-long struggle.
It is time to get out, not to prepare for decades of more of the same.
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10 Responses to “Decades to come”
I began to suspect a long time ago that while the rest of the nation is agonizing over when to withdraw and how to withdraw, Bush’s main concern is simply to delay withdrawal of any kind until; after he’s gone.
That way he can preserve his signature motto of having stayed the course. It’s about his legacy, first and foremost.
I know this is a cynical view, and I certainly can’t prove what’s in the man’s mind.
It’s a gut feeling I can’t shake, however.
It looks now as if Bush might well be successful in kicking the ball to the next president. He can afford to be serene, while everyone else agonizes about what matters most.
Michael makes a good point that there is a good chance that any republican elected president 2008 will follow Bush’s plan and continue that losing policy in Iraq. The person occuping the White House when the plug is finally pulled on this Iraqi misadventure will always be called the “the one who lost Iraq”. No republican would want that title. l don’t think I could vote for any of the republicans running now, although I would prefer to see a republican president and the senate and house in a veto proof majority democratic, after the next election cycle. I want a republican in there to be the one who has to clean up the mess that Bush has made of just about everything his presidency has touched. I don’t see possibility of a good outcome in Iraq if we stay. No plan that is going to work will work without a return of a military draft, and that won’t happen. Inspite of good arguements on both sides of why we should stay or leave, it only makes sense to cut our loses and get out.
Oh vey! General P. a loyal Bushie? Please. Your criticism of Petraeus and the “surge” is way off base and belies a fundamental ignorance of the operation. Read the comments in this TMV post for more. Your other criticisms basically blame him for not being insubordinate – do you really want military officers to pick and choose when to follow the constitutionally-mandated chain of command? If so, then our republic will soon resemble Pakistan’s.
Here here John! Ron Paul would be my choice out of the current Republican candidates.
Petraeus says or does something you dislike: He’s bad.
Petraeus says or does something you like: He’s good.
That was easy.
The Motto of the Military-Industrial Complex is “It is not whether you win or lose! It is how you play the game!”
The eventual end of the war will depend, not on the politics of Republican versus Democrat, but whether the people vote in a sane person or a psychopath as the next President of the U.S.
Johnson, Nixon and “W” all were psychopaths with a dark side!
Eisenhower shut down the Korean War, because he was sane!!! Not insane!!
[...] All the more reason to vote Democratic next year. (more…) [...]
It seems the thrust of your post is that if something is difficult and will take time, and involve sacrifice, then obviously we should not pursue it, even if it is in our national interests.
If we are going to dwell back in the 60′s mentality, then let’s at least give Spiro his due. He had a lot of flaws, but turned one of the great political phrases of all times talking about the press and punditry – “nattering nabobs of negativism”, along with his lesser remembered “an effete corps of impudent snobs” and “hopeless, hysterical hypochondriacs of history”.
Of course, those words were actually written by William Safire and Patrick Buchanan, of whom the mere mention of their names throws many journalists into apoplectic fits.
[...] All the more reason to vote Democratic next year. (more…) [...]
[...] All the more reason to vote Democratic next year. (more…) [...]