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Desperately seeking an Iraq policy
Another of my occasional letters to pro-Bush, mainstream conservative war supporters concerning the need for —no, not a “Plan,” but at least a policy: Dear Miss Coulter, Of course you’re right that the Dems’ insistence on a “Plan” is a utopian demand that there never be any problems. But there is an element of truth in their concern. As far as one can tell from following the news, there has been a widespread failure to grapple with the terribly complex issues we face in Iraq, a failure that is seen in one Bush statement after another and one pro-Bush article after another. Bush’s mantra, “stay the course,” means that we stay in Iraq until the terrorists and insurgents stop attacking and a new government is installed that can survive on its own and we can come home. But what if the terrorists don’t stop attacking? If they don’t, then “stay the course” does not suggest any strategy by which we can stop them from attacking, i.e., defeat them. And if don’t defeat them, we’ll never be able to leave. And since their numbers can be endlessly re-supplied from outside Iraq, there is no reason to believe that they will stop coming, though of course it’s possible that attrition might work. If our goal is to leave a self-sustaining pro-Western government in place, then how do we get there, other than hoping that attrition might work, as we also hoped in Vietnam? I don’t see any signs that the Bush adminstration and its supporters have thought through this issue sufficiently. This seems to me a grave failing of the entire pro-war camp.
Have YOU thought through these issues? Do YOU have a concept of victory in this war, and what we would have to do to achieve it? If not, then you are drifting along with “stay the course,” imagining that to mock the Democrats’ absurdities is a policy. Email entry |