So you REALLY believe we're going to put 100,000 American troops under foreign command for a decade?
It's not about what I believe. What I believe is that Bush will let Iraq wither just as soon as he can after Saddam is gone and any WMD that might be there are found.
What is at issue is that the Administration, in an attempt to gain support for the war, said they're not going to abandon the Iraqis but will provide the wherewithal to get them up and running and stable in a democracy. Now, any idiot realizes that that would require beaucoup bucks and lots of time. When there were multi hundred billion dollar cost estimates circulated, the Administration beat them down. Like I said, they were trying to gain support and didn't much care whether they were promising things that were incompatible or more costly than the public would accept if they looked thoughtfully beyond the fear and the rah-rah. If you have grief over incompatibility, you're aiming at me is misdirected. I'm long on record that the plan is either smoke and mirrors or not very well thought out.
Look, if we don't put the troops, money, time, etc. into getting Iraq going, the Middle East will be in worse shape than under Saddam. Yet if we hang around and try to mold the place, we'll piss off the Islamists even more than they are now. Not to mention what Iraq as a democracy would do to the dominos. Either way, we win the military engagement and lose the war. The contradictions and the costs are a big chunk of why this war is misguided. If you want to bitch about contradictions, address it to the WH, not me. I thought containment, while unsatisfying, was the best we could do. |
