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Thursday, January 11, 2007
A new strategy in Iraq? No.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The hype surrounding the President’s speech last night on the Iraqi phase of the war on terrorism would tempt us all to think that something new and important had been announced — a “surge” in troop strength accompanied by a “change in strategy” that amounts to a “new course in Iraq.” It strikes me as nothing more than a battlefield adjustment, altering tactics and troop strength in one sector in response to the enemy’s battle plan. For those who were looking for a significant Iraq-related news event to declare their political support, conversion or opposition, the President has provided it. Otherwise, in any and all wars, troops shift where they’re needed, and in the numbers commanders think warranted for the length of time they deem necessary to achieve victory. The battle for Baghdad is not open-ended, but neither is it time-fixed.
Certainly the President’s speech gave politicians the news peg to declare themselves. U.S. Sen. John McCain of Arizona, one of the three Republicans (along with Gov. Mitt Romney and former New York City mayor Rudolph Giuliani) leading the pack for his party’s nomination to succeed George Bush, declared afterwards that “this can succeed.” It is not, he said, “just an increase in troops; it is a change in strategy.” He noted, too, that unless we succeed, the spread of extremism throughout the region will mean we’ll have far greater challenges than we do in Iraq. As the President said in his speech: “The challenge playing out across the broader Middle East is more than a military conflict. It is the decisive ideological struggle of our time.” Losing is not an option.
Well, maybe it is. The antiwar Democrats, quick to declare defeat, sent U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, on camera in rebuttal prepared to sign the surrender agreement at the earliest possible opportunity. “We are not winning the war,” he said. “The situation is grave and deteriorating.” Escalation — his characterization of what the President had announced — “is not the change Americans called for in November.” Democrats in Congress may balk at funding, pass legally meaningless resolutions that are little more than messages to terrorists to hold on until 2008, or use their control to hound the Administration and to gain face time on the evening news.
From today on until the 2008 elections, the country will be asked — or forced by the two parties — to retreat into isolation or to continue pursuing those who threaten us, as we are doing in Iraq, Afghanistan and Somalia, where eight years after the 1998 bombing of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania we’re tracking down, cornering and killing the bad guys one, eight or 20 at a time.
