Lieberman has an opinion piece today 2/26/2007 in the WSJ on "The Choice in Iraq." I never read the WSJ's editorial pages because it's not good for my blood pressure but the premise of Lieberman's contention, trumpeted on p. 1 of the Journal was enticing: We need a truce in D.C. to improve the situation in Iraq. Lieberman's basic contention:
Congress thus faces a choice in the weeks and months ahead. Will we allow our actions to be driven by the changing conditions on the gorund in Iraq - of by the unchanging political and ideological positions long ago staked out in Washington? What ultimately maters more to us: the real fight over there, or the political fight over here?
If we stopped the legistlative maneuvering and looked to Baghdad, we would see what the new security strategy actually entials and how dramatically it differs from previous efforts. For the first time in the Iraqi cabpital, the focus of the U.S> military is not just training indigenous forces of chasing down insurgents, but ensuring basic security - meaning an end, at last, to the large-scale sectarian slaughter and ethnic cleansing that has paralyzed Iraq for the past year.
How many problems can you find in those two paragraphs?
(1) Unchanging political positions? Well on the Democratic side, there have been some of us who opposed the war from the start, who oppose "the surge" and favor an immediate pullout. However, on the Democratic side, you also have many who have changed their position dramatically, from supporting the war initially to strongly supporting a pullout now. Murtha, Edwards, and Kerry come right to mind. On the Republican side, other than Hagel I'm hard pressed to name many who have changed their positions.
(2) Does the new strategy differ dramatically from previous efforts? Well, Lieberman is correct that the new strategy is not JUST chasing down insurgents - done before - or training indigenous forces - attempted before - but now includes those two AND also attempts to ensure basic security. One might reasonably ask why the change? My answer: because when we initially went into Iraq there wasn't a problem with ensuring basic security and that was something taken for granted. Indeed, our actions there have led to a lack of basic security and have facilitated sectarian slaughter that we are now attempting to stop. So the new strategy differs from previous efforts because previous efforts haven't worked. In fact, our prior efforts have led to the problems that the new strategy is attempting to correct.
Now if someone had opposed prior efforts, and in particular had opposed them because he/she recognized that they would not be effective or would create problems, this statement supporting the changing strategy could in my opinion have some merit. However, Lieberman has been a cheerleader every step of the way for the prior strategy. A modicum of honesty would require that he state this fact in the WSJ. (Of course you won't find it there because to do so would call his good judgement into question.)
Lieberman again:
We of course will not know whether this new strategy in Iraq will succeed for some time.
That statement is likely quite honest but also highly problematic. Does he mean 6 months? 12 months? Or 5 years? And what are we supposed to do in the interim? Since mid-2003 the administration has been less than honest - or at least less than accurate - in describing the conditions in Iraq. We keep hearing statements like "the insurgency is in its last throes" or "we've turned the corner." If there's a new strategy, how will we ever know when it works - and when/if it doesn't work then the administration will have a new strategy and the argument will be made again: give this strategy time to work! How many "do-overs" does Lieberman think the administration deserves? A decent respect in the opinions of man require that Lieberman state what exactly the "end-game" in Iraq would look like.
Finally, Lieberman states:
I appeal to my colleagues in Congress to step back and think carefully about what to do next.
Sound advice. Even better advice if given to the Bush-Cheney administration. There has been no shortage of recommendations about what to do next - from the Iraq Study Group to many in the military (often reflected in Murtha's comments) to many in Congress as well as from the public as a whole. Those recommendations generally have been at odds with the administration's current plan. And yet Cheney and Rice and Bush have rejected them all in favor of whatever "The Decider" decides.
What do we do next? If, as Lieberman states, "We are at a critical moment ... at the beginning of a key battle in the midst of a war that is irretrievably bound up in an even bigger, glogal struggle against the totalitarianism of radical Islamism," then the next step is to fight that battle and that war to win. The next steps are to bring back the draft, put 500,000 troops over there, change the rules of engagement to win - and define exactly what "winning" means, and increase taxes to pay for the troops and their support - and that's just to start!
If Lieberman is wrong, then the next step is to pull back and start acting like a reasonable nation rather than the rogue state that is the view of the U.S. through much of the rest of the world.
Moral of my first diary? Never open the Wall Street Journal to the editorial page!