We Republicans Must Come to Terms with Reality

It looks like we'll start the long process of drawing down in Iraq in September, 2007. Of course, the process will roll over into the next President's administration, and it seems that there is an inconsistency.

The Republican Presidential candidates do not seem atuned to the war's reality. First of all, if we do in fact begin drawing down, no one can possibly suggest that we'll turn 180 degrees in mid-stream and start increasing the amount of force in Iraq.

Also, Defense Secretary Robert Gates (who is far more grounded than Rumsfeld), agrees with Gen. David Petraus that we can increase military strength in Iraq, but it will solve nothing significant as long as the Iraqi government is unwilling to solve problems there themselves.

The way people often summarize the situation in Iraq is that it requires a political solution and not a military solution. Both propositions are false. The situation in Iraq requires a popular solution, one in which the regular folks agree that killing each other is absurd. Yes, we could build up our troop strength in Iraq, which could even stop the violence throughout the entire country, but a forced peace is an unstable peace that requires constant and perpetual tending.

We are not colonialists in means or in ambition. Hence, we do not have the capacity to occupy Iraq in perpituity. Some like to use the rhetorical phrase, 'cut and run', but the fact is that we set out in Iraq to overthrow a dictator and to install a democratically-elected government, and we have accomplished those.

We should stop there, not proceeding into whether or not we've afforded Iraqis a better life. We're defeated there. We shouldn't venture into whether we stopped sectarian violence. We're defeated there. We shouldn't venture into whether we've annihilated terrorism in Iraq. We're defeated there.

At least we can say that we accomplished what we set out to do in Iraq, even if we can't say we accomplished so much more. So, what now? The real war has always been in Afghanistan and in Pakistan. We have to come to terms with that--all of us.