Ruining a Presidency for Nothing: Bush and Iraq
by James Buchanan
Bush continues to insist that we can “win” the Iraq war. The definition of winning the war is extremely vague. Bush has repeatedly said that our forces will stand down when the new Iraqi army stands up. There’s just one little problem. There’s not a chance in hell the Iraqi Army will be able to beat the rebels. A recent news article reports that the US recently lost five Stryker armored vehicles in just one week. If the US Army is losing equipment at this rate, what will become of the Iraqi Army which will have only a fraction of our resources?
The most sane course of action for George W. Bush would be to bail out of Iraq. Bush has painted himself into a corner by repeatedly dismissing this as a “cut and run” policy. If Bush had been more open-minded and much less stubborn, he could have dropped the Iraqi mess, the minute it began to fester and smell. Recent history has favored American presidents, who pulled out of Third World disasters after getting their fingers burned. Ronald Reagan had enough sense to cut his losses and get out of Lebanon after 241 Marines were killed in a massive truck bombing. Bill Clinton had enough sense to cut his losses and get out of Somalia after the “Blackhawk Down” disaster. Americans don’t care about these Third World nations. By “staying the course” Bush is guaranteeing that he will have a negative political legacy. Even if through some miracle, we built a stable democracy in Iraq, it would still be seen as a failure because of the half-trillion dollar price tag and because of the fanatic religious mullahs, who would be elected by the Iraqi people. Staying in Iraq is a “lose-lose” proposition. (more…)