Sunday, January 07, 2007
A Year of Living Dangerously
Winds of a Wider-War
Apparently, President Bush will be announcing yet another re-vamp, re-alignment, re-imagining of the war in Iraq. There seems to be near universal skepticism of his plan, which rumor has it can range anywhere from an laughable 9,000 troops to a more substantial 50,000. Either option would be a mistake.
I've long agreed with the President that the war in Iraq is a critical fight in the war on terror. While it was a war of choice, defeat could be like "Black Hawk Down" times a million, empowering our enemies - Al Qaida, Iran and opening us up to future terrorist attacks here and abroad. It is unfortunate then that the President, Vice-President and then DOD Secretary Rumsfeld decided not to fight this war as if it were the first battle of the long slog against the Islamicists. In fact, how we are fighting this war has brought to mind a whole host of questions, like:
If we needed 400,000 troops to liberate Kuwait, why did we only send 140,000 to liberate Iraq?
Why did we disband the Iraqi Army and the government rather than keep it in place with new leadership?
Why do we continue to support (with money and lives) an new Iraqi government that shows no leadership in building a representative federal government?
We spend 1/2 a TRILLION on our military a year and we cannot sustain a small war against a country the size of Texas?
The list goes on and on. I think it is critical at this point to plan and prepare for the strategic implications of a realignment of our forces in the region rather than continue on with this charade. I haven't yet seen a proposal that I think would accomplish this but I think redeploying out troops to Kurdistan or other regions may be a good idea. But to allow this to continue on the same downward trajectory would border on criminal negligence. Accept that the battle for Iraq is over, that we lost it due to bad planning and execution and that we can best focus our energies on preparing for the inevitable fall out of all this - mark my words.
Apparently, President Bush will be announcing yet another re-vamp, re-alignment, re-imagining of the war in Iraq. There seems to be near universal skepticism of his plan, which rumor has it can range anywhere from an laughable 9,000 troops to a more substantial 50,000. Either option would be a mistake.
I've long agreed with the President that the war in Iraq is a critical fight in the war on terror. While it was a war of choice, defeat could be like "Black Hawk Down" times a million, empowering our enemies - Al Qaida, Iran and opening us up to future terrorist attacks here and abroad. It is unfortunate then that the President, Vice-President and then DOD Secretary Rumsfeld decided not to fight this war as if it were the first battle of the long slog against the Islamicists. In fact, how we are fighting this war has brought to mind a whole host of questions, like:
If we needed 400,000 troops to liberate Kuwait, why did we only send 140,000 to liberate Iraq?
Why did we disband the Iraqi Army and the government rather than keep it in place with new leadership?
Why do we continue to support (with money and lives) an new Iraqi government that shows no leadership in building a representative federal government?
We spend 1/2 a TRILLION on our military a year and we cannot sustain a small war against a country the size of Texas?
The list goes on and on. I think it is critical at this point to plan and prepare for the strategic implications of a realignment of our forces in the region rather than continue on with this charade. I haven't yet seen a proposal that I think would accomplish this but I think redeploying out troops to Kurdistan or other regions may be a good idea. But to allow this to continue on the same downward trajectory would border on criminal negligence. Accept that the battle for Iraq is over, that we lost it due to bad planning and execution and that we can best focus our energies on preparing for the inevitable fall out of all this - mark my words.
