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| Iraq |
| Victory Is Not An Option |
| 2007-02-12 |
| The Mission Can't Be Accomplished -- It's Time for a New Strategy Lt. Gen. William E. Odom, U.S Army (Ret.) Sunday, February 11, 2007 Odom launches his attack by going on at length about Bush's blunder in not embracing the "stability" fetish of the Realist school of foreign policy thought, then calls on Congress to "exercise its power of the purse to end the war and open the way for a strategy that might actually bear fruit." Having expended his propellant, he then delivers the payload: The first and most critical step is to recognize that fighting on now simply prolongs our losses and blocks the way to a new strategy. Getting out of Iraq is the pre-condition for creating new strategic options. Withdrawal will take away the conditions that allow our enemies in the region to enjoy our pain. It will awaken those European states reluctant to collaborate with us in Iraq and the region. Second, we must recognize that the United States alone cannot stabilize the Middle East. Third, we must acknowledge that most of our policies are actually destabilizing the region. Spreading democracy, using sticks to try to prevent nuclear proliferation, threatening "regime change," using the hysterical rhetoric of the "global war on terrorism" -- all undermine the stability we so desperately need in the Middle East. Fourth, we must redefine our purpose. It must be a stable region, not primarily a democratic Iraq. We must redirect our military operations so they enhance rather than undermine stability. We can write off the war as a "tactical draw" and make "regional stability" our measure of "victory." That single step would dramatically realign the opposing forces in the region, where most states want stability. Even many in the angry mobs of young Arabs shouting profanities against the United States want predictable order, albeit on better social and economic terms than they now have. Realigning our diplomacy and military capabilities to achieve order will hugely reduce the numbers of our enemies and gain us new and important allies. This cannot happen, however, until our forces are moving out of Iraq. Why should Iran negotiate to relieve our pain as long as we are increasing its influence in Iraq and beyond? Withdrawal will awaken most leaders in the region to their own need for U.S.-led diplomacy to stabilize their neighborhood. HT: Pappy |
| Posted by:Dave D. |
| #6 Things will be a lot worse, Dave D., before they be any better. |
| Posted by: gromgoru 2007-02-12 19:47 |
| #5 "The article shows, once again that just because Bush's wrong (the only freedom Arabs want is the freedom to kill their enemies i.e., anybody not immediate family, with impunity) doesn't mean his detractors are right." In my opinion, Bush made a major blunder in positing that our efforts in Iraq are certain to succeed, that sweeping aside Middle East dictators and establishing democratic self-governance in their place WILL be the key to dealing with Islamic terrorism in the long term. In nearly every speech on the topic, he has spoken with an almost religious faith-- even a blind faith-- on the power of freedom to overcome the hatred and evil that visited us on 9/11. He speaks of the advancement of freedom as being "the calling of our generation". But there's a big problem with that faith of his: not everybody shared it even in the beginning when things seemed to be going well, and fewer still share it now. I suspect the average Joe on the street looks at everything going on in Iraq and the rest of the Arab/Islamic world and mutters, "Yeah, right. Just look at those people-- there's no way in Hell you're ever gonna turn them into anything other than what they are: savages." So when he hears Bush go on and on with his high-minded "freedom" talk, he suspects Bush is just clueless. Worse still, by taking a public stance of rock-solid certainty that democracy and freedom WILL cure what ails the Muslim world, Bush set the stage for exactly what we've ended up with: an interminable, irresolvable national political argument over whether or not Bush is "right", with his political allies (such as they are, anyway) claiming that he is, and his political enemies shouting to the rooftops that no, he is wrong (along with being wrong about everything else, everywhere, all the time, and in every way possible, with no exceptions). I think that it would have been a lot better if, rather than continuing to express that unshakable faith of his that freedom and democracy WILL cause Arabs to cease their fascination with murdering us kufr and turn them into responsible world citizens, he had simply positioned our Iraq effort (and Afghanistan as well) as an option we needed to try, in part because, among the options available to us, it is the only one in which neither we nor the Islamic world ends up having to take a big one up the ass. He should have told the American public, in effect, "Look, we've got to try this. Maybe it'll work, maybe it won't; but we won't know unless we try. We're certainly not going to surrender to the enemy, not on my watch. We've tried appeasement, we know that won't work. Ignoring the attacks, or withdrawing from the world, isn't going to work either. We've tried the "law enforcement" approach to terrorism, that's what got us to 9/11 in the first place. As much as many of you abhor the Patriot Act and being felt up by surly airline security personnel every time you try to board a plane, that's NOTHING like the police state it would take to stop terrorism by heightened domestic surveillance alone; not gonna do that. And we're not about to declare totalische wehr on the entire Islamic world, whether to conquer and subjugate them, or to punish them, or to intimidate them, or to exterminate them. This attempt at transforming the Middle East through the power of democratic self-rule may work or it may not, there are no guarantees; but we need to try it because the other options are all far worse." Had he done that, the argument today would be about "yes, it's working" versus "no, it isn't" rather than about "Bush is right!" versus "Bush is wrong!" and that would have been a lot healthier for this country. However, at this point that's all academic: come January 20, 2009 the Bush Doctrine-- all of it, both the democracy part and the preemptive war part-- will be dead whether Bush is succeeded by another Republican or by a Democrat. God help us. I see dead people-- LOTS of them. |
| Posted by: Dave D. 2007-02-12 18:31 |
| #4 Victory is the only option. Where's Patton when we need him. He'll slap some sense into these candyasses. |
| Posted by: JohnQC 2007-02-12 16:04 |
| #3 The article shows, once again that just because Bush's wrong (the only freedom Arabs want is the freedom to kill their enemies i.e., anybody not immediate family, with impunity) doesn't mean his detractors are right. |
| Posted by: gromgoru 2007-02-12 13:41 |
| #2 We can write off the war as a "tactical draw" and make "regional stability" our measure of "victory." Choke, spit, cough! He said what?? Exactly who's side are you on there LTG(ret)Odom?? The men and women fighing for our nation did NOT join so your fat retired ass could pontificate about the virtues of a tie in the war on terror! This is not "hysterical rhetoric" you dumbass. We are destin for more WTC events with guys like you spouting your "acceptable draw" in this war. GFY! |
| Posted by: 49 Pan 2007-02-12 10:31 |
| #1 The first and most critical step is to recognize that fighting on now simply prolongs our losses and blocks the way to a new strategy. Getting out of Iraq is the pre-condition for creating new strategic options. Withdrawal will take away the conditions that allow our enemies in the region to enjoy our pain. It will awaken those European states reluctant to collaborate with us in Iraq and the region. Second, we must recognize that the United States alone cannot stabilize the Middle East. If we can't, who else is there? Answer - there is no one else. Restructure the whole argument along the lines of the old west being developed in the 19th Century. You think we should have pulled out of the Sioux country [the Dakota Territory] after taking loses at Fort Phil Kearney? or for that matter later at Rosebud or Little Big Horn? That maybe Washington should have given up allowing settlers into the area? Hell, we were having just as much problems dealing with the natives in the New Mexico Territory too. Should have pulled out there too. It does end there. You sit in Texas and the Apache come in from the territory to the west. You try to put pressure on them in the territory and the just cross the Mexican border and continue their raiding from across the Rio Grande. It will never end [at least from the perspective of 1870]. There is no central strategy. Constantly suffering casualties, a continuing drain on the nation's treasury, and certainly unpopular with the eastern intellectual city folk. There is no consistence policy. How would you ever succeed? Guys, note for you. This is a part of the unending process that every great nation goes through. When it gives up and permit the 'enemy' the choice of when and where they will do their dirty work is when the curtain begins to fall. If it ain't worth fighting for, it ain't worth having. |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2007-02-12 07:49 |