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Iraq and ‘The Time Scale For Tolerance’

April 8th, 2007
By SHAUN MULLEN, TMV Columnist

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iraq040707.jpg

Over the four year-plus slog of the Iraq war, there has been no more incisive analyst than the WaPo’s Thomas Ricks.

In a must-read analysis, Ricks writes that there now are two Iraq wars being waged — the one fought in the streets of Baghdad and the war as it is perceived in Washington.

Money quote:

While Washington appears headed toward a political endgame on Iraq, with the White House and Congress sparring over benchmarks and pullout dates, the war on the ground is at an ebb tide. All sides — including U.S. military strategists and Iraqi sectarian leaders and insurgents, as well as regional players such as Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia and Turkey — are waiting to see whether the new U.S. approach to make the Iraqi capital safer will work. Soldiers on the ground tend to see the Washington debate as irrelevant, and the perspective of many politicians in Washington is that the military schedule is simply too slow.

“The time scale to succeed is years,” said John J. Hamre, a former deputy defense secretary, while “the time scale for tolerance here is 12 months for Democrats and 18 months for Republicans.”

More here.

Photograph by Haidar Fatehi/The Associated Press



This entry was posted on Sunday, April 8th, 2007 at 10:43 am and is filed under George W. Bush, Iraq, Congress. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

 
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