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What now?: the necessity of leadership — 19 Comments

  1. No president in my memory has had to contend with as much relentless negativity from both the press and the opposition party that President Bush has. It has made his job immeasurably more difficult than it needed to be, and has muddled the options for dealing with the question of Iraq and the entire ME. In my opinion, the opposition to the “Iraq adventure” has been based more on political backbiting than on legitimate debate about options.

    Had the opposition not been so vocal, strident and (IMO) misguided, I believe that our response to Syria and Iran would have been much more forceful. But with public opinion being shaped by bogus “news”, agenda-driven “journalism”, and political hackery of a nearly treasonous sort, I think that America’s will to persevere in the necessary hard slog has been severely handicapped, and the administration’s hands tied.

    I wonder who will be around to accept the blame when we pull out like so many want us to…and the whole situation goes south.

  2. I think a key element to keep in mind is that Bush cannot really do just whatever he wants to do at this point. Congress balances him out, and second, he has “lost his political base” among the American people, either for “staying the course”, amping up the struggle, or “more troops.”

    I am pleased to see that many are calling for more troops, but apparently there aren’t any more to be had. John McCain’s support DEPENDS on more troops (BTW, if I read George Will correctly, the Senator’s son just lost both legs in Iraq.)

    The article you cite also contains this paragraph:

    Historian Arthur Herman in this month’s Commentary calls for airstrikes not only on Iran’s nuclear facilities but also on its ports and refineries; Iran depends on imports for its gasoline, and without ports and refineries, its economy and military would grind to a halt.

    That’s a move that might be condemned by the “international community,” and it risks antagonizing the people of Iran, many of whom tend to hate the mullahs and admire America. But it also might destabilize the regime and dislodge a president who has threatened the destruction of Israel and America. Who today regrets Israel’s strike against Iraq’s nuclear reactor in 1981?
    Yeah, fine, whatever. But does anyone really believe that the American people or Congress will sign off on that?

  3. “But does anyone really believe that the American people or Congress will sign off on that?”

    Exactly what I meant when I said that the administration’s hands were tied…and they have been tied since shortly after 9/11, as Neo’s post above this one explains.

  4. “Afterwards, it was our duty to the Iraqis, as well as in our own interests, to be effective in reconstructing a country that had been shattered–not by our war, but by the preceding decades of horror, murder, and divisive brutality, and by a lack of any recent tradition of democracy or cooperation in that country.”

    Err, no – the country was shattered(both the infrastructure and the order under a tightly controlled state) by the U.S wars – most definitely.

    And the U.S has handed out it’s own brand of horrors in Abu Gharib and amongst the Iraqi civilian population Fullujha etc- we certainly wouldn’t want to ignore that reality…

  5. US policy has turned a bad country into a total nightmare. How many more deaths does this staying the course entail?

  6. It is too bad that not too many people share your gracious humility, Neo.

    I won’t act like steve with the “I told you so” act. Maybe because I’m more interested in how many terrorists can be terrorized and killed in the now and the future, rather than becoming fixated on past opportunities.

    Whatever I may have recommended or whatever people were talking about in 2003, no longer applies. Because the situation has changed. There are no looters to shoot, and Sadr has now become a much bigger problem than just arresting him, executing him, and hanging his body on top of a Sunni mosque via US helicopter can solve. Fine, you adapt with the situation, go with the blows. It’s how you win a fight and a war. Adapt and overcome, or sit down and die. There are always options in war. Where there is a will, there is a way.

    If Bush does what I recommend, which is to send US forces across Syrian and Iranian borders to take and hold a small, very very small, border town and construct Green Zone defenses and bunkers around it, this would help Maliki out a lot with the internal Iraqi problems.

    Too many people have become tunnel visioned into the “my way or the highway” game where they have to, just Have To, get their pet theories implemented. It is the wrong way to look at things. For either the Left or the Right. Bush is not going to go Colonial on Maliki, and having recognized the futility of arguing with a brick, I simply try to bypass Bush’s stubborness by taking what his goal is and adapting my strategy to help Bush’s goal to stabilize Iraq. I am obviously not in favor of stabilizing Iraq so much as using it as a training and logistics base to get Iraqi shock troops that we will then use to purge the Middle East using Imperial logistical constructs.

    Bush thought the Democrats, Chirac, and the CIA/State was actually helping him get his policies working. So he treated his enemies as friends, and his friends as enemies. Not only insane, but the results are pretty predictable as well, as you can see. This is demonstrated by Bush not overriding the Governor of L and just sending National Guard and telling people to evacuate.

    Bush doesn’t like being a bully, but a war leader must both be ruthless towards enemies and honorable towards allies. Bush believes too many enemies and obstructions, are allies. Which hurts his real allies, when he is soft on their enemies. Soft on the UN, soft on the media, soft on the Democrats, soft on the Governor of L, soft on Syria, soft on Iran, soft on Saudi Arabia. The list goes on and on.

    You may be thinking, what about right after 9/11? Well, what you saw was the American military might unleashed. The ruthless effectiveness of the Special Forces in Afghanistan were unparalleled. President Bush benefited much, in terms of image, by the sheer destructiveness and killing ability of the United States military. Now, he has chained the only ally he had in government. The US military, by putting them in Iraq,

  7. xxThe US military, by putting them in Iraq, and then just not moving at all. So his enemies converge, crush and constrict Bush’s sole loyal member of the government. The US military. Hemmed in, bogged down, not allowed to unleash their full power because of “Iraqi sovereignty”. Bush has cut himself off from all the power sources of the Presidency. He is committing virtual suicide and taking this country down with him in despair. His problem is not that Bush doesn’t care, Bush’s problem is that he cares too much. The absolute hatred and rage that is required to do the things that must be done, has dissipated, and so has Bush’s momentum. Bush had power when he was enraged and allowed the rage of the military to carry themselves through to victory. Now he talks about peace. Peace is for the dieing, not the living, Mr. President.

  8. I dunno about shooting looters. In theory, I’m for it.

    But you know that we’d be pilloried for shooting a couple of impoverished Iraqis who were only trying to…..stave off starvation by stealing color television sets.
    “Killing people to defend a furniture store?!”
    Nope.
    Those who claim we should have come down on the looters were hoping we would so as to have more dead Iraqis to use against the war effort. They regret we didn’t, but not because of the shopowners bankrupted.

  9. Neo, you can gauge how well you are doing by how much the “Loyal Left” is gloating. If they are screaming Imperialism and we need to stop, stop, stop with the killing, you know you are doing it right.

  10. Yes, that makes sense. When the architect of this war you supported admits it’s going badly and enormous changes are neeeded, you must be winning.

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