No one seems to be writing opinion pieces quite the way I would, so I decided to do it myself.

The name? Taverns are places where one goes to discuss the interesting events and things in the world, so this is my tavern.

I will offer my views on politics, economics, and whatever else strikes my fancy.
I will occasionally publish the entire article from another journal for purposes of causing discussion.

 

When we cut-and-run from Iraq, who will be blamed?

Josh Marshal in talking points memo has quotes from Joe Biden and John McCain about what is happening in Iraq now.

Marshal points out that we can simply pull our troops out and let the place go to Hell the day we leave, or we can create a half-trained and underequipped Iraqi security force, turn it over to whatever group of Iraqis wants to try to govern, and pull our troops out by next Spring and hope it holds together until after November 2004 before it goes to Hell.

These two choices are determined by the date of the US Presidential election, not by circumstances on the ground in Iraq. They both have a real problem since they mean that we have been defeated, and Iraq will very likely become a greater threat to us later than it was under Saddam. The Bush White House will be quite satisfied if these problems occur after the November 2004 elections, and they hope they will still be in place to have to (mis)handle the new problems they will have created.

The alternative is for us to somehow to extend more Army troops, use Marines in the pacification role (not what they are trained for), use the rest of the Reserves, and try to expand the Army rapidly while they are doing that because those are all still short-term solutions. We are stuck in Iraq if there is any chance to succeed.

If we fail in Iraq, I doubt that Bush can be reelected. That, of course, depends on the failure being recognized before the election.

None of this considers what will happen to the Iraqis, because they have already recognized that they don't matter in this mess.

None of it is a decent resolution of the garbage situation the Bush administration has left us in, and none of it has a damned thing to do with 9/11 which was their excuse for doing this to us and Iraq.

Yuk.

Joe Biden

John McCain
posted by Richard at 2:45 PM