Common Sense

Fareed Zakaria said it best this weekend.

It is time to call an end to the tests, the six-month trials, the waiting and watching, and to recognize that the Iraqi government has failed. It is also time to face the terrible reality that America’s mission in Iraq has substantially failed.

More waiting is unlikely to turn things around, nor will more troops…..Nor will new American policies help. The reason that the Democrats seem to lack good, concrete suggestions on Iraq is that the Bush administration has actually been pursuing more-sensible policies for more than a year now, trying vainly to reverse many of its errors. But what might well have worked in 2003 is too little, too late in 2006.

That’s essentially what some have been saying for quite some time now. At least since the 2004 elections.

The majority opinion in this country now says we should not have invaded and that the president lied to get us into this war. That’s what most of us liberals were saying in 2002-03, before we invaded. That doesn’t mean we have been proven right, though.

What we do know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, is that we have failed miserably in Iraq. Too many mistakes early on and an unwillingness to admit those mistakes will turn out to be the downfall of this experiment in nation building.

Just assuming for hypothetical purposes, Iraq was the next logical step in the war on terror, we went in with too few troops to secure the country. Thank you Donald Rumsfeld for completely dismissing the Powell Doctrine while serving in an administration with Colin Powell.

But we did win the initial battles with Saddam’s forces. And quickly. Once the CPA was set up, the decision was made to disband the military for de-Baathification purposes. It turns out that Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld are behind that idea, too. So, in 2003 we had a fully functional security force in place, but we got rid of it.

In 2004, during the second debate, President Bush claimed we would have 250,000 police and soldiers trained by the end of that year. We didn’t see those kinds of numbers until 2006. And our policy of Iraqification, ‘we’ll stand down as they stand up,’ is now working in reverse. We put our trained police in certain areas, and 250 bodies turn up. So, American forces are having to replace the Iraqis because they are more interested in sectarian reprisals than supporting the national government.

All of that isn’t the worst of it, though. Honestly, who cares if Iraq fails? It’s already a terrorist haven, thanks to us, and we’ve already provided plenty of training for that next generation of terrorists. Even if we were to succeed in making a stable country, they are already allying themselves with Syria and Iran. The problem is that the time and attention we’ve put into Iraq has caused most of us to forget about Afghanistan.

Like Iraq, we had a window of oppurtunity in Afghanistan to wipe out the threat of al Qaeda and their allies, the Taliban. Because we went in with too few troops (why does that sound familiar?) and relied heavily on the local militias, many were allowed to escape into the tribal areas on the border.

Pakistan is our ally, but without the international attention needed to put real pressure on Musharraf, we’ve largely made a mess of our foreign relations with him while not achieving any worthwhile objectives. The early successes have now faded into a war of attrition. Iraq has become our second Vietnam and Afghanistan has become another Afghanistan. Many of the same people who bled the Soviets dry and regularly crossed the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan are now bleeding the American military dry.

That window where we could have had a real democracy and real change in a Muslim country while simultaneously defeating our most serious enemy may have already closed. And its because our president and the people he’s appointed to advise him are idiots and liars.

Fareed Zakaria said it best this weekend.

It is time to call an end to the tests, the six-month trials, the waiting and watching, and to recognize that the Iraqi government has failed. It is also time to face the terrible reality that America’s mission in Iraq has substantially failed.

More waiting is unlikely to turn things around, nor will more troops…..Nor will new American policies help. The reason that the Democrats seem to lack good, concrete suggestions on Iraq is that the Bush administration has actually been pursuing more-sensible policies for more than a year now, trying vainly to reverse many of its errors. But what might well have worked in 2003 is too little, too late in 2006.

That’s essentially what some have been saying for quite some time now. At least since the 2004 elections.

The majority opinion in this country now says we should not have invaded and that the president lied to get us into this war. That’s what most of us liberals were saying in 2002-03, before we invaded. That doesn’t mean we have been proven right, though.

What we do know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, is that we have failed miserably in Iraq. Too many mistakes early on and an unwillingness to admit those mistakes will turn out to be the downfall of this experiment in nation building.

Just assuming for hypothetical purposes, Iraq was the next logical step in the war on terror, we went in with too few troops to secure the country. Thank you Donald Rumsfeld for completely dismissing the Powell Doctrine while serving in an administration with Colin Powell.

But we did win the initial battles with Saddam’s forces. And quickly. Once the CPA was set up, the decision was made to disband the military for de-Baathification purposes. It turns out that Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld are behind that idea, too. So, in 2003 we had a fully functional security force in place, but we got rid of it.

In 2004, during the second debate, President Bush claimed we would have 250,000 police and soldiers trained by the end of that year. We didn’t see those kinds of numbers until 2006. And our policy of Iraqification, ‘we’ll stand down as they stand up,’ is now working in reverse. We put our trained police in certain areas, and 250 bodies turn up. So, American forces are having to replace the Iraqis because they are more interested in sectarian reprisals than supporting the national government.

All of that isn’t the worst of it, though. Honestly, who cares if Iraq fails? It’s already a terrorist haven, thanks to us, and we’ve already provided plenty of training for that next generation of terrorists. Even if we were to succeed in making a stable country, they are already allying themselves with Syria and Iran. The problem is that the time and attention we’ve put into Iraq has caused most of us to forget about Afghanistan.

Like Iraq, we had a window of oppurtunity in Afghanistan to wipe out the threat of al Qaeda and their allies, the Taliban. Because we went in with too few troops (why does that sound familiar?) and relied heavily on the local militias, many were allowed to escape into the tribal areas on the border.

Pakistan is our ally, but without the international attention needed to put real pressure on Musharraf, we’ve largely made a mess of our foreign relations with him while not achieving any worthwhile objectives. The early successes have now faded into a war of attrition. Iraq has become our second Vietnam and Afghanistan has become another Afghanistan. Many of the same people who bled the Soviets dry and regularly crossed the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan are now bleeding the American military dry.

That window where we could have had a real democracy and real change in a Muslim country while simultaneously defeating our most serious enemy may have already closed. And its because our president and the people he’s appointed to advise him are idiots and liars.