When I was in college, the tired joke behind the title of this post was a question: “Is it sunlight or an oncoming train?”
And that’s precisely what we don’t know about Iraq.
What we do know is this: With a majority of the democratically elected Iraqi government voting for us to leave, and with 11 moderate Republicans stepping up to look Bush squarely in the eye and tell him (effectively) “time’s up” — the end game is near. We can definitely see the light at the end of the tunnel.
However, as the NYT ed board wrote today …
The really important question now facing Washington is the one Mr. Bush still refuses to address: how, while there is still some time left, to design an exit strategy that contains the chaos in Iraq and minimizes the damage to United States interests when American troops inevitably leave.
At Central Sanity yesterday, several co-bloggers, readers, and I got into a civil but spirited exchange regarding a post in which I confessed that, after months of equivocation, I have finally joined yesterday’s crew of 11 Mod-R’s, plus a long list of Dems and others, and concluded that “we should, as quickly and sanely as possible, get the hell out.”
The arguments played back to me by readers and co-bloggers were similar to what I’ve previously debated with the mirror: “But what about the Iraqi people? What about the bloodbath to follow? Don’t we have some responsibility to stop that? After all, we created this mess.”
Rightly or wrongly, we liberated the country from Saddam. Rightly or wrongly, we took them to the doorstep of Democracy and handed them the keys.
And now, their government is not stepping up to the plate. I don’t believe the line that they can’t step up; I think it’s a matter of will — and there have been conservative publications (The Economist, for one) that have reported the same.
Plus, there’s the factor of news reports … that suggest a majority of democratically elected Iraqi lawmakers want us out of there; they want to be a sovreign nation determining their own destiny. We have an obligation to let them try; and maybe this is the first sign of their “will” to succeed.
Face it, at a certain point you can’t help those who won’t help themselves — and you can’t ask noble people (like our friends, relatives, and their fellow soliders) to continue to put their necks on the line to help those who won’t help themselves.
Finally, once again, this is about sane withdrawal, not careless withdrawal. It’s about putting pressure on people to help themselves by not letting them simply rely on our already too-thin resources to do it for them.
Later in that same comment (consistent with, though not identical to, thoughts offered separately by Mod-R blogger Dennis Sanders), I suggested my position was ultimately consistent with a — wait for it — conservative Republican philosophy …
Bedrock among conservative principles are these: limited involvement in foreign conflicts; promoting human liberty by encouraging if not forcing self reliance.
And now, this morning, after a relatively decent night’s sleep, I find my position has not changed. It is time for a sane but swift withdrawal, or again, as the NYT ed board put it: “an exit strategy that contains the chaos in Iraq and minimizes the damage to United States interests when American troops inevitably leave.” Importantly, it can’t be sane or swift, exit or contain. It must be both; it must incorporate the “genius of the and.”
So, does “swift but sane” mean July … September … January? I don’t know. The Generals should decide the timing, i.e., they should be given the authority to do what they’ve rarely been granted the authority to do in this Administration. Meanwhile, this Administration would be well advised to go back, crack open a copy of that Baker-Hamilton report — compiled by smart people who know a hell of a lot more than this Administration or any of us about foreign policy — and start implementing the remainder of their thoroughly considered, thoughtfully constructed bi-partisan recommendations.
Only then will we be able to hedge our bets that the light at the end of this tunnel is sunlight and not an oncoming train.