Two from column A and one from column B

The Iraq Study Group gave their report to the President this morning, and since they leaked their report last week, there are no new surprises. It demonstrates how useless these “bipartisan” commissions have become;

As expected, the panel’s recommendations attempt to cut a middle path between demands by many Democrats for a firm timetable for a U.S. withdrawal and President Bush’s insistence that U.S. troops remain in Iraq until the job is done.

How do you compromise on the right answer? I know it’s popular to subscribe to the platitude that there are no more right answers, but obviously, that’s just wrong. You can’t compromise on the answer to the math problem 1+1=?, just like you can’t compromise on the answer on how to be successful against the dark forces arrayed against us. Either we are or we aren’t.

Democrats can’t even agree on a strategy. In Newsweek this week, Silvestre Reyes, the incoming Intelligence Committee chair said;

“We’re not going to have stability in Iraq until we eliminate those militias, those private armies,” Reyes said. “We have to consider the need for additional troops to be in Iraq, to take out the militias and stabilize Iraq … We certainly can’t leave Iraq and run the risk that it becomes [like] Afghanistan” was before the 2001 invasion by the United States.

So which is it, guys? More troops like Reyes says or a withdrawal like the Baker Commission suggests?

And as I said in earlier post, this “quick reaction force” to support the mobile training teams left behind in Iraq just won’t work. It didn’t work in Viet Nam and it won’t work in Iraq. It’s be like supporting the San Francisco police department from Oregon – it’s too far to be a deterrent. And what is the QRF going to do when it’s not needed?

This reminds me of the 9/11 Commission report that never really decided anything except that they all agreed that someone brought down the World trade center on September 11th, 2001. They had no real recommendations, they never pointed a finger at the real culprits, and no real workable solutions to prevent the inevitable future attack. Because the whole report was a compromise between competing political factions, rather than a report from experts on the subject.

The report is no different. Attempting to reach a political compromise on what action we should take to win in the Middle East, this “study group” has only muddied further the waters. I’d like to take the study group, put them in body armor, give them a rifle and send them out to patrol in Baghdad – maybe then they’d have a better idea as to what our troops need, because the answer isn’t in some regurgitated campaign commercial.

Category: Foreign Policy, Politics, Terror War