Has the surge brought success? I believe it has made the situation in Iraq better, yes. The real question is whether it has made it better in the long term or only because there are more troops there right now to police things. Time will tell.
Let us rejoice with what seems to have happened in the Anbar province. It does indeed seem good news that the Sunnis have turned on the elements whose main purpose is to fight us. But of course Anbar is not a Sunni-Shiite, mixed place with a lot of civil war going on. The biggest problem in Iraq by far is not those there to fight us. It is the civil war going on between Sunnis and Shiites.
By the way, remember how hard the Bush administration fought against that label--civil war? Publically we have had nothing but denial after denial. Well, only 20 some % of Americans actually believe Bush's spin now. These are either the enlightened ones or the expected small group who wouldn't change their minds if the truth came up and bit them on the ... nose.
But as a Christian, and as an American, I have to hope that it works out. My human side wants Bush to be held accountable for a frivilous war that has cost us thousands of American lives and tens of thousands of innocent Iraqi lives, not to mention billions of dollars and the moral high ground vis-a-vis the world.
But I have to hope that, against all expectations, Iraq and the Middle East will be a better place in the end. We have to hope that Bush can gloat about how the Iraqi government became unified and the sectarian violence came to an end. I have to hope that things will begin to go so well that he can try to rub it in my face. "Look at how wonderful life in Iraq is now. It truly is better than it was under Saddam Hussein."
I hope we can say that one day, in the same way that a teenage pregnancy can result in the birth of a wonderful person that we would never wish had not been born. But the facts of the beginning of the war cannot be changed.
- That Bush launched an inappropriate preemptive war without prerequisites long established for over 1000 years. He did it on the basis of a overarching strategy for the middle east first and only secondarily because of Hussein and weapons of mass destruction. Without provocation, Hussein would not even have been a sufficient basis for going to war. Those who don't learn from history...
- That this war was a diversion that had nothing concrete to do with 9-11 or terrorists or Al Qaeda. We should have continued to pursue bin Laden. This was a switch-a-roo to accomplish side goals.
- That Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld launched this war with naive, utopian visions of Western freedom, thinking we probably would not lose much more than a 100 troops as they flocked to our ideals for them. Oops.
- That we are not "fighting them over there so that we don't have to fight them here." The terrorists in Iraq are not the 9-11 terrorists and they only joined to Al Qaeda after the war had started. I doubt what we have done in Iraq has diverted a single terrorist plot here in America.
- That our moral influence in the rest of the world is nil, that we have only pushed people away from the Christianity they associate with America. Rest assured no nation will be signing up for us to help them get freedom any time soon.
History will not be kind to President Bush.
Signed, a Republican
6 comments:
I do agree with you...
But, as all presidents are blamed for the decisions ultimately (and that doesn't mean that others are not "fall guys" in the present), they themselves are blinded or short-sighted depending on the "council" they recieve....and that depends on their "wisdom" in choosing their advisors....which may depend again on their "openness" to "outside" ideologies....so much for conservatism...
Notice that Bush no longer states the goal as "victory", and that his measure of "success" is based on a radically different measure than when he announced the troop escalation months ago. Back then the purpose was to buy time for the Iraqi national government, allowing it a stable environment to gain its footing while the Iraqi military and police grew in size and might. But we have essentially given up on the national government and instead are buying friends at the local level. For now. Whatever benefits there are from the surge--and those are quite debatable--have little promise of leading to a lasting peace unless accompanied by a major push in diplomacy.
It's horrible to say this, but Bush appears to be doing little more than delaying the inevitable until a new administration takes over. And guess who will be blamed then? Especially if it's a Democratic President.
I continue to be awestruck that we Americans have allowed this to happen.
While I will agree that the Bush administration has made terrible mistakes in the war in Iraq and, as angie points out, Bush will take the majority of the heat but Ken I am suprised that you seem to put 100% blame on Bush in all your writings. Was I the only one who watched the Senate debates over the issue of Iraq before we went to war? Was I the only one who saw a clear majority in both Reps. and Dems. saying that Iraq had to be stopped for the safety of the region and the U.S.? Yes Bush should and will take much of the blame because he is the 1 guy who could give the command of "We are going in" but please don't give all the other congressmen a free pass! If you are to criticize i think you should criticize fairly to both sides.
Matt, I agree that there are lessons to be learned for budding Congresspeople here too--and for the American people too, who I think have to take much blame too. At the time, it felt like it would have been political suicide to oppose Bush. People were so in a frenzy over 9-11 that Bush could have gotten anyone to do anything in the name of justice. Few were asking the right questions. It seems to me that the American people have to be just as angry at themselves as at Bush if they were blindly gun ho at the time.
But I don't blame Congress as much as Bush because they were not pushing this war, and as I recall their vote was to give Bush authorization to go to war as he thought was appropriate. The timing and manner of his entry were all his decisions.
By the way, in retrospect Germany's behavior back then seems very righteous now. I won't say that France's or Russia's was, because I think they were mostly acting in their own self-interest. But remember how the American people slammed them at the time (just as they would have slammed any Congressperson who opposed the war)? I remember some German official on TV nervously repeating that he just didn't see the evidence to justify UN authorization, and we skewered him.
So the media and the American people have to get some sort of dufus award too!
Is there ever a time for war?
Lew
Matt's argument, that our legislators (especially Democrats in Congress) share equal blame, always bugged me. Remember that Congress was making its bold statements based on intelligence that was picked, filtered, and interpreted by the administration. So the fault of Congress--and it's a serious one--is that they believed Bush and team without asking a lot of questions! How can the administration get away with that one?
Even assuming that the intelligence was correct, there was still the issue of how to respond. Remember also that this was a controversial subject, and lots of folks argued that we should confirm the intelligence, get allies involved to apply political and diplomatic pressure, crack down even more sanction violations, etc. It was Bush that pressed for invasion. Make no mistake, this is HIS war.
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