Letter to Ken Mehlman, Chairman of the Republican National Committee

Mr. Mehlman:

I am not a Democrat. In fact, I am a centrist Republican who is weary of Republican rhetoric, especially concerning Iraq. Are the Democrats weak on terror? The opposition party has proposed that we streamline our objective in Iraq to avoid embroiling our soldiers in the complexities of civil war. If Iraq is the central front on the war on terror and we are supposed to be fighting a war on terrorism, then permanently annihilating terrorism in Iraq must be our objective. The opposition party has recognized that Special Operations is capable of handling counterterrorism without large troop deployments that keep the United States ill-prepared to handle other crises. Meanwhile, Senator McCain at Thursday's Senate Armed Services Committee hearing, by asking Generals Pace and Abizaid if they thought a year ago civil war was possible in Iraq, revealed that the Bush Administration never had a plan for this violence. If the Administration had no plan for this, then what else is it lacking for planning in Iraq. So, Mr. Mehlman, it might be that the Democrats are weak on terror, but it is worse that the Bush administration is grimly ineffective to the point of turning the entire Middle East into a macrocosmic Baghdad.