For those of us who can remeber the good ole Clinton Days, and I mean that sincerely, it seems to me that the same Repubs. who are against an Iraq Exit Plan were demanding that Clinton come up with an Exit Strategy for the Bosnian crisis.
If Iv'e peaked your interest, join me after the fold.
THE THEN:
Now, first I must admit my memory of the Bosnian crisis is somewhat faded with time, so if I don't get the facts exactly straight please don't rake me over the coals too much.
I seem to remember that from the first day when Clinton indicated we might have to intervene in Bosnia to prevent genocide, the Repubs were saying "if we go in, how do we get out Mr. President?" A few months into what was mainly a peace keeping mission (no Americans were dying as I recall), the Repubs. were hounding Clinton constantly for an exit plan that brought our troops home in weeks or months, not years. They portrayed Bosnia as a conflict that was none of our business and that it was not worth a single American life (again our boys were not dying at the time).
So Clinton gave them an exit plan, and a good one at that. The plan was to replace US troops with NATO peacekeepers and bring our troops home in an orderly manner without any resumption of the armed ethnic conflict. And you know what - it worked despite those Repubs. who wished it would fail.
It also should be noted that our action in Bosnia was viewed positively by most of the world community. We were preventing the etnic cleansing of Albanian Muslims in the face of Serbian terrorism. Amazing as it may sound now, the US was viewed positively, or at least in a neutral way, by the Muslim community at that time.
THE NOW:
Now fast forward to Iraq. The Dems. let Bush go into Iraq without even hinting at needing a plan to get us out. So here we are 3 years and over 1700 american lives later, and the Dems. are finally asking for an Exit Plan as their Repub. colleages did within months of the start of the Bosnian conflict. However, the point of this is not to bash the Dems. for their tardiness. The point is to look at the sheer hypocrisy in the Repubs. reaction to this request for an Iraq Exit Plan (not a request for an immediate withdrawl as the Repubs would like to frame it).
Some of the same Repubs who were in Congress clamoring for a Bosnian Exit Plan (for the some of the same reasons as the Dem's are asking for an Iraq exit plan I might ad), are vehemently opposed to any exit plan for Iraq. I would bet a Lexis search of Repub statements on Bosnia would show that these guys are saying the exact opposite from what they are now saying about Iraq.
The general Repub. line in opposition to an Iraq exit plan is that the insurgents would wait it out and would then begin a bloody civil confict. I guess in the case of Bosnia the possibilty that Serbs could of resumed the etnic cleasing of muslims if we pulled out as quickly as the Repubs. wanted us to, did not occur to these nimrods at the time, or maybe they just didn't care because there was no oil at stake. You be the judge?