Bruce, re: Did you really expect any Middle East strategy to be both easy and quick?...A little patience, no?
I think you've finally hit upon a rock solid argument. If we have faith and give things enough time, who knows what we'll find.
One of my family members had cancer. She went to "alternative" medicine practicioners. They kept telling her that their methods worked but that they took faith, time and patience. If anyone questioned their methods they stated that the lack of "faith" that generated was, in itself, promoting the disease.
The cancer got worse but the prescription of "faith, time and patience" never changed because, after all, who knew when the "cure" would take hold. She died. The clues were there for anyone to see but of course those with faith kept believing despite the facts.
In Iraq the realities have made liars of those who propose the "cure" you support. The cancer is growing and the symptoms are killing our soldiers, killing civilians in Iraq, turning moderate enemies into radical enemies, creating fertile breeding grounds for terrorists, draining our treasures, eroding our leadership in the world and thus our effectiveness, and poisoning some of the principles that we have so loudly trumpeted as setting us apart from other great powers of the past. It's getting worse, not better, No one seems to have a good analysis of what went wrong and what to do about it except "work harder." Do you think that maybe it's time to finally examine the validity of the underlying assumptions upon which this disaster was grounded?
So I don't think it's a very good answer to Suma to chide her that our intervention in Iraq won't be quick nor easy and that she should exercise "a little patience." |
