Many in the blogosphere and in this community advocate pulling out of Iraq. As much as I dislike it, this is an oil economy, so I have to believe that leaving the country with the world's second largest oil reserves to fall into civil war or the hands of Islamic extremist in the face of an emerging Chinese economy would most assuredly lead to a global economic catastrophe.
Our country and the world need a stable Iraq and I don't think we can declare this goal unrealistic, because we've been using the same ineffective playbook since the day we invaded. There is another way, advocated by many in this party, but we don't have the ability to implement these plans because we're out of power. So my solution is to stop suggesting that the direction of the war is completely up to the president, as he is already proven incompetent and reckless, and instead make the job of winning this war the responsibility of Congressional Democrats.
Our party must vehemently demand increased Congressional oversight, and a complete overhaul in the policy and leadership of this war.
We need to have a list of managers to take over the operation from the aid agencies on the ground all the way up to the Secretaries of Defense and State. And we need to demand that the president adopt our plan and our team or we will shut down the government.
Such an action is bold, risky, patriotic and necessary. This does amount to a near usurpation of presidential authority, but the president has had 2 ½ years to fix Iraq and everything he's done from the beginning has proven to be a miserable failure.
The message to the American people is patriotic Democrats cannot allow this to continue. We refuse to stand idly by while American soldiers, Iraqi citizens and the world economy are needlessly killed in the name of presidential authority. Democrats can and Democrats must lead the operation and that is the only way we will clean up George's mess in Iraq.
Why will this mini-coup work? Because the American people are fed up. They are fed up to the point that 60% think we should come home, be damned the long-term consequences. They know the current group of Pentagon leaders are to blame for putting us in this position and want a change.
What do you think?