The ink is barely dry on the Iraq Study Group’s report and Bush is already pooh-poohing parts of the report he doesn’t like while cherry-picking the parts that he does. He prefers instead to stick with his grandiose vision of spreading democracy in the Middle East, a desire called unrealistic and naive by the report itself.
One of Bush’s biggest concerns is engaging Iraq’s neighbors in dialogue as to how to resolve the situation. That’s not surprising–Bush doesn’t like to eat crow, and he’ll have to eat a lot of it before he could reach out to “axis of evil” member Iran. As for Syria, he prefers to make demands that Syria back off meddling in Lebanon before talking. In typical Bush mode of having his head stuck in the sand, he appears not to realize that he’s really not in a position to be demanding anything at this juncture…and that he’ll be lucky to get any cooperation at all out of countries that he has previously sought to have cast out into the international wilderness.
As study group author and Democrat Lee Hamilton observed in the Washington Post article, “How do you solve problems without talking to people?” Indeed. Bush may not like it, but the entire region’s interests are intertwined in finding a final solution for Iraq that satisfies everyone–or that is the least odious among a menu of odious choices.
The other sticking point is the report’s recommendation to withdraw troops from Iraq by early 2008. The report sees what Bush does not: that keeping troops in the country that are not able to control the situation is only worsening the problem and putting them in harm’s way. Troop involvement should be re-defined to a supportive role that assists in educating the Iraqis to police themselves.
Withdrawing troops would, of course, be the final nail in Bush’s legacy as a failure in his Iraq adventure and will therefore resist it. This is where the Democratic Congress can exert its pressure with full knowledge that it has the backing of a solid majority of the American people, and it is Bush himself who can be portrayed as outside the mainstream, out of touch, and more concerned with a failed legacy than anything else.
It’s way past time to face the realities of Iraq, acknowledge it for the huge mistake it was, do the best we can among a suite of bad choices, swallow bitter medicine, and do what it takes to get our troops home…..because frankly the lives of our troops are way more precious and valuable than Bush’s pathetic legacy.
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