From the diaries. This is an excellent summation of where we are at the end of a week that featured the ineffectual Broderism of the ISG and more blind stupidity from the administration. --Trapper John
Today, David Brooks joins a chorus handwringers (neocon and otherwise) who paint a scary doomsday scenario should we pull out of Iraq: a future Middle East in chaos under the control of radical Islamic lunatics.
We have been told numerous times by the right that we liberals and Democrats "just don't get it" on Iraq and the Middle East; that we are staring down the barrel of a caliphate, world terrorism on an unimaginable scale, lost control of oil resources, world economic collapse, etc.
Yeah, maybe. And maybe if Vietnam falls, all of Southeast Asia will quickly become communist and then communism will spread and be knocking at our door!
That is why I coined a new phrase to describe all of this handwringing and doomsday predicting:
The New Domino Theory©
[NOTE: I now own that phrase and anyone who uses it in print or online must pay me a royalty. And I have a good intellectual property lawyer, so don't even think about it.]
What is absent from every single one of these nightmare scenario presentations is any attempt to discuss the current realities in Iraq in rational terms -- not unlike those who clung desperately to the Domino Theory in Vietnam while failing to address our steady bloodletting there.
I posted a diary here on Friday, "Let's all pretend there's an Iraqi army. So we can bring our troops home", in which I outlined how the Big Lie of training an effective Iraqi fighting force was perpetuated in the ISG report, continues to be peddled by Bush, and even has Democrats desperately clinging to it as sheepskin to cover our exit and its inevitable ugly aftermath. (And, yes, it will get even more ugly.)
As I pointed out in that diary, there will be no successful training of a competent Iraqi force that is not sectarian, and, short of adding an additional 300,000 to 400,000 American troops, there will be no quelling the insurgency.
So we should get out.
But what we continue to get from the New Domino Theorists is plenty of fear-mongering, but not a scintilla of an idea of how to deal with the current realities on the ground in Iraq.
So here are some questions for the David Brooks and Andrew C. McCarthys of the world:
- What do you have to offer? What are your thoughts on Iraq?
- Do you think we are actually training an Iraqi army? And if so, do you have cites to back up your claim?
- What information can you provide from credible sources that suggests the situation in Iraq is improving due to our continued presence? What metrics do you suggest we use to measure improvement?
- Do you want to send more troops? If so, how many and for how long?
- More than 70% of Iraqis want us out. The government, which arguably doesn't exist as a functioning central authority, would likely last just hours if we left. You say that Iraqi public opinion is not defining. How does American public opinion figure into your calculus given the results of Friday's AP poll on Iraq?
- Is it even possible to sustain an American presence in Iraq over the long term when public opinion in both the U.S. and Iraq is overwhelmingly opposed to our presence?
- Given that the trajectory of the situation has gone steadily downhill over the course of our time in Iraq to the point now where the country is producing less oil, there are fewer hours of daily electricity, the number of civilian deaths continues to climb, the stability of the government and government agencies has continued to decline, our casualty rate has gone up, the cost to us has steadily risen per month, and all of these trends do not show any signs of reversing direction, how, exactly, do you propose that we "leave them in a better situation than now?"
- And, finally, you predict the entire Middle East will devolve into a mass of chaos if we leave Iraq. So what are you suggesting? That we stay indefinitely because the entirety of the Middle East may go up in flames? And if you're not suggesting that, then what are you suggesting, exactly, in terms of our presence in Iraq?
John McCain proposes some ass-covering window dressing (20,000 more troops) so that he can later say (when we eventually get out), "See? I wanted to send more troops and no one would listen!" We need 400,00 to 500,000 troops to quell the insurgency, according to military experts.
So what does the doomsday crowd have to offer on Iraq? An indefinite continuation of the status quo? A hundred Americans killed every month, hundreds more injured, an ever-rising tide of Iraqi casualties, and a never-ending flow of our tax dollars (now rolling out at $8 billion a month and increasing) for as far as the eye can see?
I hear nothing but bleating emanating from the fear-mongers. Excuse me if I've heard it all before.
The last time I heard this argument, we ended up with 52,000 dead Americans and untold millions of dead Vietnamese, nevermind the hundreds of billions of dollars we spent arming and training an army that lasted less than a year after we departed.
Welcome to The New Domino Theory©.