I hope President Bush is having a hard time sleeping at night because I sure am. His “nightmare scenario,” which he described so vividly during his State of the Union address, is more worrisome than Freddy Kruger at a convention for narcoleptics.
That is unless he doesn’t actually believe his own rhetoric. It does sounds a little reminiscent of how he was able to garner such bipartisan support for starting the Iraq War: his “You’re-either-with-us-or-against-us” sales pitch. By creating a false choice between two options, Bush focused support for the option he preferred. Initially, what he wanted was a war against Iraq, now he wants an escalation in the number of troops actively trying to stabilize Iraq three years after the invasion.
However, the “more troops, or failure” option is a false choice. This situation is frighteningly complicated and can’t be boiled down to a simple binary option. Bush’s spin-doctors are trying to scare us with the false impression that we have two choices – his way or calamity and we don’t want calamity, do we? For something this important, all the options deserve to be considered. Even the one’s he has condescendingly brushed aside as “ways that lead to defeat.”
Which brings up another point, one where the President is absolutely right. This war is important. We should be trying everything we can to stabilize the situation in Iraq. Unfortunately, we are not.
It seems as if the planning for this war was done by a bunch of Gen-X “slackers” who wanted to see if they could get away with the least amount possible. We didn’t follow the Powell Doctrine and send in an overwhelming number of troops as General Shinseki recommended, instead we tried the least number of troops we could. In addition, except for military families, as Jim Lehrer pointed out during his interview with President Bush, the American public has been asked to make no sacrifices. Instead, we’ve been encouraged to go shopping. Now, we are finally asked to get behind a plan to add more American troops to Baghdad and Anbar Province, but again, not so many more that it is uncomfortable.
At this point America shouldn’t be holding anything back. There won’t be a second chance for this clean up operation. The situation in Iraq has gotten so bad that the White House has even stopped chiding the media for not reporting on all the “good things” that are happening in Iraq. If this escalation doesn’t work, by the time we realize it has failed, it will be difficult to ever put the pieces back together again.
So why are we continuing to approach this in some half-baked manner? If the President truly believes that his nightmares could come true and we are in a “struggle for civilization…the decisive ideological struggle of the 21st century”, why are we still trying do “just enough?” Why aren’t we mobilizing civilians for volunteer work and starting a draft to bolster our military strength? Because making those moves would enflame the country’s smoldering distrust and dislike for this current President, very likely leading to impeachment. So, although Bush says he wants to win this war, it evidently isn’t important enough to win at ALL costs.
We do need a plan to change the course of developments in Iraq. However, that plan needs to take into account the entire strength of America, civilians and military, in order to work. Trying to get Congress and the public to buy into that idea may be President Bush’s real nightmare.
Sweet dreams.
-SWL
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