The decision to keep up to 50,000 American troops in Iraq after August of next year underscores the need for extreme caution in escalating our involvement in Afghanistan and any future commitment of forces in the region.
Those originally drawn to support Barack Obama's presidential campaign by his determination to get out of Iraq will have to be persuaded that continuing US presence of such magnitude is justified. Calling it a "transition force" will not mask the fact of an indefinite occupation.
Congressional Democrats are reacting with disappointment, but stronger emotion will have to pressure the Obama Administration to provide its vaunted transparency on this issue.
American voters rejected John McCain's vision of the Iraq war last November, but the Obama timetable for withdrawal is now earning his approval as "thoughtful and well prepared." How did we get from there to here?
Colin Powell's Pottery Barn rule about Iraq ("You break it, you own it") is morphing into a flypaper rule: "You go there and you're stuck indefinitely."
The President we chose to end what he called "a dumb war" owes us an explanation for why he is authorizing what looks like a not-so-smart extension of it into a distant future.
Showing posts with label Pottery Barn rule. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Pottery Barn rule. Show all posts
Friday, February 27, 2009
Monday, July 28, 2008
Petraeus' Reality Check
By the end of last week, John McCain was agreeing with Barack Obama that 16 months would be "a pretty good timetable" for withdrawing American troops from Iraq, but now Gen. David Petraeus says no.
The situation in Iraq, he tells an interviewer, is too volatile to "project out, and to then try to plant a flag on, a particular date."
Unlike the candidates, who have condensed their positions to bumper stickers of withdrawal or victory, Petraeus is wary of what Colin Powell called the Pottery Barn rule about Iraq, "You break it, you own it."
It should be sobering to hear from our man on the ground that McCain's claims of victory and belaboring of Obama for defeatism are, to put it kindly, premature.
"We know where we are trying to go," Petraeus says. "We know how we think we need to try to get there with our Iraqi partners and increasingly with them in the lead and shouldering more of the burden as they are.
"But there are a lot of storm clouds out there, there are lots of these possible lightning bolts. You just don't know what it could be. You try to anticipate them and you try to react very quickly...It's all there, but it's not something you want to lay out publicly."
Translation: We just don't know when the US can stop pouring blood and dollars into the fantasy of a free, democratic Iraq because the outcome is not in our hands.
If anything, Petraeus' doubts should reinforce Obama's determination to decide what we can do, give up the pipedream and start allocating our forces to fight terrorists in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
The situation in Iraq, he tells an interviewer, is too volatile to "project out, and to then try to plant a flag on, a particular date."
Unlike the candidates, who have condensed their positions to bumper stickers of withdrawal or victory, Petraeus is wary of what Colin Powell called the Pottery Barn rule about Iraq, "You break it, you own it."
It should be sobering to hear from our man on the ground that McCain's claims of victory and belaboring of Obama for defeatism are, to put it kindly, premature.
"We know where we are trying to go," Petraeus says. "We know how we think we need to try to get there with our Iraqi partners and increasingly with them in the lead and shouldering more of the burden as they are.
"But there are a lot of storm clouds out there, there are lots of these possible lightning bolts. You just don't know what it could be. You try to anticipate them and you try to react very quickly...It's all there, but it's not something you want to lay out publicly."
Translation: We just don't know when the US can stop pouring blood and dollars into the fantasy of a free, democratic Iraq because the outcome is not in our hands.
If anything, Petraeus' doubts should reinforce Obama's determination to decide what we can do, give up the pipedream and start allocating our forces to fight terrorists in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Wednesday, September 12, 2007
Bush's Blood-Soaked Shell Game
After six months of hiding behind Petraeus, the Decider will emerge tomorrow to tell a grateful nation that he accepts the General’s plan to start drawing down troops from Iraq.
Americans who haven’t been following the shell game closely may believe the President is finally responding to their desire to start getting out. But of course he will only be v-e-r-y slowly removing the 30,000 troops he added this year and ensuring that the war will go on until he leaves office in January 2009.
If Congress fails to act, another 1500 young people will die, ten times that many may be maimed and another $100 billion that might have been spent on education, housing, health care and infrastructure will be shipped to Baghdad to keep a collapsing country together until a new President inherits the wreckage. Bush’s Pottery Barn rule is you break it, you sweep the pieces under the rug.
Congressional Democrats will huff and puff but, more likely than not, endangered Republican “centrists” will decide they have enough political cover to survive next November and do nothing to end the war but cluck sympathetically for the voters.
Compared to this bunch, the old carnival sharpies gave the rubes more of an even break.
Americans who haven’t been following the shell game closely may believe the President is finally responding to their desire to start getting out. But of course he will only be v-e-r-y slowly removing the 30,000 troops he added this year and ensuring that the war will go on until he leaves office in January 2009.
If Congress fails to act, another 1500 young people will die, ten times that many may be maimed and another $100 billion that might have been spent on education, housing, health care and infrastructure will be shipped to Baghdad to keep a collapsing country together until a new President inherits the wreckage. Bush’s Pottery Barn rule is you break it, you sweep the pieces under the rug.
Congressional Democrats will huff and puff but, more likely than not, endangered Republican “centrists” will decide they have enough political cover to survive next November and do nothing to end the war but cluck sympathetically for the voters.
Compared to this bunch, the old carnival sharpies gave the rubes more of an even break.
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