Is the mainstream press indulging in a bit of premature gloating, claiming victory in the battle over who controls American foreign policy -- the press or the administration? Thomas Ricks and Peter Baker of the Washington Post have teamed up in an article that speculates on the possibility of a major change in our policy towards Iraq. The headline reads Tipping Point for War's Supporters? Are we now looking for a way out, as Ricks and Baker seem to hope?
Searching for a way out, Washington has focused new attention on the work of the Iraq Study Group, a panel of well-connected luminaries led by former secretary of state James A. Baker III and former representative Lee H. Hamilton (D-Ind.). Recommendations from the group, once seen as a sop to Congress, are expected in late December or early January and promise to be the first major subject tackled by the members of the next Congress.
People familiar with the group's option papers expect it to recommend either a scaling back of U.S. ambitions in Iraq, making stability rather than democracy the top priority, or, less likely, a slow but steady withdrawal of U.S. forces.
For years the mainstream press, Thomas Ricks in particular, have been working the angle that Iraq is Vietnam. Unfortunately for America, Iraq is like Vietnam only in the way press has worked so mightily to destroy support for military action there. According to the press, for America only defeat is possible, and they go to great lengths to find every bit of news that supports their argument while ignoring everything else.
For three online pages Ricks and Baker capture quotes from various Republicans, and unidentified Marine colonel, and administration officials all to create the perception that big changes are in the offing and that means a change in our objective.
As congressional Republicans peeled away from the president, the White House grew more isolated.
Democrats who have never had a coherent policy on the Iraq war, or on any other issue, have found unity -- as the election nears. A phased withdrawal sounds good, let's run with that one.
Democrats, once deeply divided over the war, coalesced around the idea of a phased withdrawal and aired television ads on Iraq in most of the competitive races around the country.
For decades the goal of stability in the Middle East has been pursued with the result that terrorist organizations have now grown to the point where they are able to make war on sovereign nations. Witness Hezbollah's war with Israel. Democrats and the press hope to pursue that objective once again. Let the Arabs solve their own problems. We're oceans away from them, right?
"Personally," said James Burk, a military expert at Texas A&M University, "I think the 'experiment' . . . is over."
But if we abandon the goal of democracy in Iraq, the terrorists will have won, and they will have done it by simply killing random people. It hasn't mattered at all, who they kill. Anybody will do. And the press, always seeming so happy to accommodate them, go with the perception that as long as terrorists, sectarian militias, and Sunni insurgents demonstrate a willingness to kill whoever happens to be handy, they're victorious. Over which the press and the Democrats seem to rejoice, since it means the Bush Administration faces defeat. But it's America and the western world that face defeat. If we abandon our goal of democracy in Iraq, we can expect the terrorists to show up on our shores, and no oceans will keep them away.
So at the end of their article, Ricks and Baker offer a small dose of reality.
But Dov S. Zakheim, who was a senior Pentagon official under Rumsfeld, said he thinks this is simply the beginning of a new phase in the U.S. effort in Iraq.
"Everyone knows that if we leave Iraq, not only will that country have little hope of regaining any form of stability, we will likely destabilize the entire region," he said. So the current turmoil reflects the "recognition in all policy circles that we are about to enter a new phase."
With everything that's at stake, the Bush Administration isn't about to abandon our goals for Iraq. The only thing that's going to change is our approach to achieving them. And anybody that's been paying attention knows the approach has been changing all the time.
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