Brave, Brave, Brave, Brave Sir Robin

[richardf8]

Thinking about Iraq.

"Bring the troops back home" is very popular with the anti-war crowd. Most democratic candidates are advocating this as the solution to the problems Dubya has created over there. It's a bad solution though, because it ignores the fact that WE made a mess of the place. But as flags that were being waved a year ago get draped over coffins today, more and more people seem eager for a pull out. And now it looks like the Bush administration, always more mindful of the next election than of the Right Thing To Do, appears eager to look for a way to pull out of Iraq in time to get re-coronated, er elected, to the throne, er presidency of the US. That, anyway, would seem to be the latest from a meeting with Paul Bremer.

There are problems with this. The first is that, left to itself, an Iraq that has to be rebuilt by Iraqis after being destroyed by the U.S. is not going to be very friendly to the U.S. Bush began this enterprise having been told by protestors in the streets that we did not have the stomach for such an enterprise, but the time to heed that was then. Now all that pulling out can do is make matters worse, like the resurgent Taliban in Afghanistan. And the way we have shuffled the deck, we could wind up with something far worse than the secular autocracy that was in place before.

But now that Bush's rah-rah "I'm An American and I Have A Big Penis" war has gone sour, he seems willing to trade in the "Marine Hymn" for the the "Ballad of Sir Robin," who "Bravely turned his tail and fled." But then, it worked for him so well during Vietnam, I guess I shouldn't be surprised.

Comments

[visservoldemort.livejournal.com]

I agree wholeheartedly. Sending the troops in was...an idea that in principle was good and still can be turned into a very good thing, though I would think they're needed more in Iran or Syria. However, leaving now would be irresponsible in the extreme, completely ruin our detterent capability and be a betrayal to the Iraqis who have had to suffer during our (admittedly for their greater good) military operations. Furthermore, leaving Iraq now will have the exact opposite of the effect we wanted. It will lead to a dictatorial government, more terrorism and a sense that if one kills enough Americans one can achieve their goals. However, though we have to stay in, we need to work in a more multilateral format. Now, I'm not necessarily proposing the U.N. but we need to give nation's incentives to help us with this peacekeeping. With Japan and Turkey having withdrawn troop offers, it's important we find more nations to help and soon. In addition, we need to focus on creating an infrastructure to lead to a democratic and stable Iraq as quickly as possible while still getting the job done. It's going to be hard, but with a lot of effort and some time we can still pull out with a successful, stable, pro-American and democratic Iraq behind us.