Too little, too late
That's what everybody, even Republicans, is saying about Bush's speech last night.
...nothing new here, move along folks, nothing to see .. enjoy the scenery and don't worry if blood mixed with oil is bad for your car...
So Bush gave his speech and proposed nothing really new. No new military tactics .. just more troops to help clear and hold neighborhoods. If one of those neighborhoods is Sadr City--which covers about half of Baghdad--and we send US troops in there with "new rules of engagement" that place fewer "restrictions" on what they can do .. well, sounds like a full-out war against Muqtada al Sadr and the Mahdi Army.
Yet, there are those who think Sadr is strongly ANTI-Iranian and attacking him will only strengthen Iranian interests.
Bush's speech had no new plans to reduce sectarian clashes, just a list of what we expect the Iraqi government to do .. something about Prime Minister Maliki accepting responsibility for his own country. Yeah, like that's going to happen.
Can you honestly say that placing the Shia in charge of Iraq is worth one more American life?
And Maliki won't be long for this world if we go gangbusters into Sadr City. That he is still alive shows us he's in cahoots with Sadr.
I won't hold my breath waiting for the Interior Ministry to "increase transparency and accountability" .. or "transform National Police into a professional force." I've talked to too many troops returning from Iraq.
Bush also issued the standard warning that Iran and Syria are on notice. Nothing new there .. but it's getting scary. I feel that his White House is itchin' to attack Iran, but we have used up most of our military might in Iraq.
Look, it's not like I want the president to fail in Iraq, because I care deeply about the 150,000 American men and women we have in the Middle East. They are going to fight their hearts out .. just like they've been doing all along. But how many have we lost in the last year? And we're still spinning our wheels in the same place in the sand as a year ago...
We can only hope that Bush is giving himself an excuse to pull out. Maybe after we start the 2nd Battle of Baghdad, and are about to move into Sadr City, all set to go house to house .. Maliki will get cold feet and say "no way." Bush will wait a little while, then give a speech announcing that we're bringing the troops home because the Iraqis aren't willing to take the next step .. are not willing to hold up their end of the bargain.
I can dream, can't I?
Seriously, this is the most complicated mess we've ever gotten into. There isn't just one conflict going on in Iraq, there are several, and we have little effect on any of them. There is the sectarian struggle among Iraqi ethnic and tribal groups .. Iraqis fighting each other.
We can't resolve their struggle for political, or military, dominance. Nor can we determine which group will control or share resources. That's an internal struggle which can only be decided, violently or politically, by the Iraqis.
There is the "insurgent" struggle .. Iraqis fighting us and our allies. They are traumatized by what we've done to their country and want us the hell out of there.
There is the Jihad struggle .. "foreign" fighters and groups like al Queda who want all Westerners dead. This is the battle we should concentrate on .. but we can't. We've stirred the pot too much. We can't distinguish the combatants .. they are intermingled with the combatants from all the other struggles.
I hope we've learned that the solution to all world problems is not might and force, shock and awe. That has failed miserably .. and last night Bush ordered up more of it.
Several prominent Republicans are speaking out .. Sen. Chuck Hagel said Bush's plan to send more troops to Iraq is "a dangerously wrongheaded strategy" and will "drive America deeper into an unwinnable swamp at a great cost."
Sen. John Warner of Virginia, the ranking Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, expressed his own reservations, saying he would spend some time "mulling Bush's proposal in the coming days."
Warner has witnessed the strife in Iraq firsthand. "Young men and women in uniform should not be caught in the crossfire of a civil war started with who should have succeeded Muhammad in 650 A.D.," he said.
Republican Minority Leader Sen. Mitch McConnell was on CNN insisting that we're-fightin'-'em-there-so-we-don't-have-to-fight-'em-here .. I doubt the people of London and Madrid would agree.
I will save the dollar cost of the war--a quarter-million dollars every minute--for another post. Think of all the border guards and policemen we could buy with that money....
