Another Defector
Senator Domenici is the most recent addition to the GOP revolt over Iraq. He joins Voinovich and Lugar in just the last week.
This is slightly surprising. I thought they would have waited until the September report. After that they would be able to use it to 'prove' that progress in Iraq is too slow (or whatever else they want to 'prove'). While I am no fan of the Iraq situation, I am miffed by lack of a plan by the defectors. They make empty pronouncements about funding the troops and denounce timetables but what are they for? I haven't heard any coherent plan from them, and definitely not from the Democrats either.
Regardless how we got into Iraq, we cannot simply pull out. In short, it would be a recklessly irresponsible move. Some semblance of order, however slight must be established. What does that mean? It means that an Iraqi citizen can go to the market without wondering if he will return. It means that there is an agreement, however tenuous, which allow for a form of power sharing and oil wealth distribution. It means that foreign terrorists with a singular goal of instability are mostly driven out or contained. It does not mean that Iraq must look like a mini-America, which was the major problem from the beginning. Actually i would argue that is what got us into this mess, but that is another story for another day.
Regardless, exit will not be pretty. It will most likely look like a post-civil war Lebanon. Several groups involved in an uneasy power sharing agreement where each side distrusts the other. Such an arrangement will be fragile and easily disturbed. Read this for a more in depth analysis.
As is life. It is not pretty but its what we will most likely leave. Anything less is unacceptable.
The real problem I have with the defectors is their lack of vision. Actually I take that back. They do have a plan. They plan on winning re-election in 2008. But when it comes to an issue such as this there should be more than politics at play. The world is watching and we will either be more damaged than we already are diplomatically or we will reserve some semblance of legitimacy.
You can't be against the 'war' and be for an alternative.
1 comment:
"They make empty pronouncements about funding the troops and denounce timetables but what are they for? I haven't heard any coherent plan from them, and definitely not from the Democrats either."
Somewhere along the way, "opposition" came to mean a lazy void bereft of original thought or counter-proposals. This holds true across the spectrum. I think the biggest reason that the "Contract with America" went over so well in 1994 was not so much that people wholeheartedly agreed with it, but that it was a concrete plan of action to move forward.
Pity that the small government priciples around which it was built were discarded in under a decade...
Post a Comment