Saturday, September 05, 2009

George Will’s Uncle Walter moment II

Not only Afghanistan, but we must leave Iraq, too:

If, in spite of contrary evidence, the U.S. surge permanently dampened sectarian violence, all U.S. forces can come home sooner than the end of 2011. If, however, the surge did not so succeed, U.S. forces must come home sooner.

Golly, Spotty, it sounds as though Mr. Will has his doubts about the success of the surge.

Good for you grasshopper; the syntax of that sentence was pretty opaque, but you figured it out. Why the long face George?

Since U.S. troops withdrew from Iraq's cities, two months have passed, and so has the illusion that Iraq is smoothly transitioning to a normality free of sectarian violence. Recently, Gen. Ray Odierno, commander of U.S. troops there, "blanched" when asked if the war is "functionally over." According to the Washington Post's Greg Jaffe, Odierno said:

"There are still civilians being killed in Iraq. We still have people that are attempting to attack the new Iraqi order and the move toward democracy and a more open economy. So we still have some work to do."

Will disagrees with that conclusion, saying, “Our work here is done.” If the fate of Iraq is to be governed ultimately by an Iranian-influenced strong man, Will is right. Which reveals, what Alan Greenspan called a war for oil, for the fool’s errand it was. In the paragraph leading to the conclusion at the top of the post, Will said:

Many scholars believe, [Kenneth] Pollack says, that nations which suffer civil wars as large as Iraq's was between 2004 and 2006 have "a terrifyingly high rate of recidivism." Two more years of U.S. military presence cannot control whether that is in Iraq's future. Some people believe the war in Iraq was not only "won" but vindicated by the success of the 2007 U.S. troop surge. Yet as Iraqi violence is resurgent, the logic of triumphalism leads here: [see the first quote, above]

Where where you in 2004, 2005, and 2006, George?

No comments: