One Utah

Arianna Huffington was in fine form yesterday on HuffPo.

Yes, Bush is finally admitting mistakes. But only because, politically, he realizes he has to if he’s going to be allowed to continue making more mistakes. And even then, his admissions are strangely detached, like when he told “60 Minutes”: “No question, decisions have made things unstable.” And who, pray, made those decisions? Wasn’t it the Decider?

Arianna categorizes the Republicans (plus Senator Lieberman) as “triumphalists, just-becausers, and realists.” The first category includes President Bush himself, VP Dick Cheney and Senators McCain and Lieberman. They claim to actually believe the “new way forward” will lead to some kind of a victory in Iraq even though nothing new is being attempted.

I say they claim to believe In Bush’s plan because Senator McCain, at least, is smart enough to know better. When McCain advocated a troop increase of between 18,000 and 27,000, it was just political rhetoric to ingratiate himself with the necons. As kos points out, he never guessed that Bush would ignore the Iraq Study Group’s recommendation for a withdrawal. Now McCain’s bluff has been called.

The “just-becausers” have realized that there is no logic behind supporting Bush’s war. So they don’t even pretend there is. Examples: Senators Jon Kyl and Mitch McConnell, who told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer: “I think we ought to give the president a chance to succeed so we can have a victory there.” As if four years isn’t enough to know one way or the other.

The Milblogs that Cliff likes to analyze have fallen into the “just-because” camp. After years of saying no more troops are needed in Iraq and Bush listens to the generals, they’re stymied. Bush has fired the generals and suddenly decided to send more troops because he has run out of options to keep the war going since the voters repudiated “stay the course.” It doesn’t make sense anymore. From “Patriot” on A Soldier’s Perspective:

There is one thing that has been gnawing on my for weeks. When I first went into Iraq in late 2003, all I ever heard about from opponents of the President was how we didn’t put enough boots on the ground to stop the looting. Then we didn’t put enough boots on the ground to prevent Fallujah. Then we didn’t put enough boots on the ground to stop our Soldiers from getting killed. There were never enough boots on the ground. Finally, the president dedicates 21,500 troops to increase levels and Democrats want to complain that more boots are getting put on the ground. We’re in trouble when our elected politicians create lose/lose situations when our President and military is trying to win.

Senator Chuck Hagel leads the “realists.” From Hagel’s Senate Foreign Relations Committee testimony last Thursday: “This speech given last night by this president represents the most dangerous foreign policy blunder in this country since Vietnam, if it’s carried out, I will resist it.” Senators Sam Brownback and Gordon Smith have also joined the reality-based community.

It’s going to take some courage on the part of Republicans end the occupation of Iraq. The Democrats probably can’t do it alone.

Arianna again:

We need to clear the political landscape of rah-rah Pollyanna policies, hold that ground, then build an Iraq strategy that acknowledges reality. Now that’s a “clear and hold and build” plan I can get behind.

This entry was posted Tuesday, January 16th, 2007 at 3:21 pm and is filed under Disaster, George W. Bush, Iraq, Republicans, This Blog, War. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.