[Peace-discuss] After Much Bluster, NY Times Editorial Okays Troop Hike

[C. G. Estabrook]

[The subject line is Alexander Cockburn's comment.  --CGE]

	EDITORIAL
	Past Time to Get Real on Iraq
	Published: January 9, 2007

We’ve been down this road before. This time, it has to be different.

There have been too many times that President Bush has promised a new
strategy on Iraq, only to repeat the same old set of failed approaches
and unachievable objectives. Americans need to hear Mr. Bush offer
something truly new — not more glossy statements about ultimate victory,
condescending platitudes about what hard work war is, or aimless vows to
remain “until the job is done.”

If the voters sent one clear message to Mr. Bush last November, it was
that it is time to start winding down America’s involvement in this
going-nowhere war.

What they need is for the president to acknowledge how bad things have
gotten in Iraq (not just that it is not going as well as he planned) and
to be honest about how limited the remaining options truly are. The
country wants to know how Mr. Bush plans to end its involvement in a way
that preserves as much of the nation’s remaining honor and influence as
possible, limits the suffering of the Iraqi people and the harm to
Iraq’s neighbors, and gives Iraqi leaders a chance — should they finally
decide to take it — to rescue their country from an even worse disaster
once the Americans are gone.

The reality that Mr. Bush needs to acknowledge when he speaks to the
nation tomorrow night is that the Iraqi government of Prime Minister
Nuri Kamal al-Maliki is feeding rather than restraining Iraq’s brutal
civil war. The Iraqi Army cannot be relied on to impose order even in
Baghdad, while the Iraqi police forces — dominated by sectarian militias
— are inciting the mayhem.

Mr. Bush must acknowledge that there is no military solution for Iraq.
Whatever plan he offers needs to start with a tough set of political
benchmarks for national reconciliation that the Iraqi government is
finally expected to meet. It needs to concentrate enough forces in
Baghdad to bring some security to streets and neighborhoods, giving
Iraq’s leaders one last opportunity to try to bargain their way out of
civil war.

His plan needs to lay out tight timetables in which the Iraqis must take
major steps to solve fundamental issues, including equitably dividing
their oil wealth and disarming vengeful militias. There must also be a
clear and rapid timetable for achieving enough stability in Baghdad to
hand back significant military responsibilities to the Iraqis.

The last time America presented Mr. Maliki with a set of political
benchmarks, he bluntly rejected them. If he does that again, there is no
way America can or should try to secure Iraq on its own. Mr. Bush must
make clear to both Iraqis and Americans that without significant
progress, American forces will not remain.

We’re under no illusions. Meeting those challenges is going to be
extremely tough. And Iraq’s unraveling may already be too far gone.

For Mr. Bush, this means resisting any vague Nixonian formula of “peace
with honor” that translates into more years of fighting on for the same
ever-receding goals. Democrats in Congress should also resist
euphemistic formulas like “phased redeployment,” which really means
trying to achieve with even fewer troops what Washington failed to
achieve with current force levels.

Nor can America simply turn its back on whatever happens to Iraq after
it leaves. With or without American troops, a nightmare future for Iraq
is a nightmare future for the United States, too, whether it consists of
an expanding civil war that turns into a regional war or millions of
Iraq’s people and its oil fields falling under the tightening grip of a
more powerful Iran.

Mr. Bush is widely expected to announce a significant increase in
American troops to deploy in Baghdad’s violent neighborhoods. He needs
to explain to Congress and the American people where the dangerously
tapped-out military is going to find those troops. And he needs to place
a strict time limit on any increase, or it will turn into a thinly
disguised escalation of the American combat role.

The Washington Post reported yesterday that just under 23,000 Iraqi
civilians and police officers died violently in 2006, more than 17,000
of them in the last six months. That is a damning indictment of the
Maliki government, and of current American military strategy.

That is the Iraq that Americans want Mr. Bush to deal with tomorrow night.

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