In Iraq, Stay the Course - but Change It - Daniel Pipes
As coalition policy reaches a crisis, may I resurrect an idea I have been flogging since April 2003? It offers a way out of the current debate over staying the course (as President George W. Bush has long advocated) or withdrawing troops on a short timetable (as his critics demand).
My solution splits the difference, "Stay the course - but change the course." I suggest pulling coalition forces out of the inhabited areas of Iraq and redeploying them to the desert.
This way, the troops remain indefinitely in Iraq, but remote from the urban carnage. It permits the American-led troops to carry out essential tasks (protecting borders, keeping the oil and gas flowing, ensuring that no Saddam-like monster takes power) while ending their non-essential work (maintaining street-level order, guarding their own barracks).
[New York Sun]
1 comment:
It is unusual, I will give you that. In other words, leave the terrible, murderous, insecurity that we created, and go play in the desert while they kill each other and engae in a full fledged, undeniable even by thie administration, civil war? Let us redeploy all our own nation's police forces away from the cities, where they may find danger, and send them to our borders in the West to protect us from all those low wage, non terrorist, "9-5 immigrants" that keep doing all those jobs American's don't seem to want to. This will not only curb illegal immigration, but with the ensuing anarchy in our cities streets, we won't even need the services those "illegals" provided as we slowly turn our cities into some apocalyptic science fiction thing. Running away from the mess we created, and then playing war games in the "suburbs" is tantamount to running away, while trying to save face. Maybe running away is ok, but if it is, then just run away. If it is not, then you have to find a way to finish what you started, even if it is not the result you originally planned. I am not sure what the resolution of Iraq will be. That is why i am one of those who thinks we should have considered things much more carefully and cautiously before entering Iraq. But since things are out of control, we probably need more forces there so the people feel more secure then they did under Saddam. We need to get the oil pumping and infrastructure running, as we promised, and have not delivered on yet, so the people feel, finally, that they are better off than under Saddam. And we should probably stop torturing and killing them so that they can really believe Saddam is really gone, and not just replaced by Saddam 2. Maybe then we will not have to kill off every other Iraqi, or let them do it to themselves, nor break the country up into three or so "nationlets". Maybe then we could leave on the moral highground. But then morality is only something this administration likes to talk the talk, but has never, EVER, walked the walk.
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