McCaffery gets it wrong, too

First let me say, I have immense respect for retired general Barry McCaffery having served under him a few times. What he did with the 24th Division at Rumailia after Desert Storm was amazing – since I was riding to their rescue while they were wiping out a rogue division of Republican Guards. Turns out they didn’t me.

However, his piece in the Washington Post this morning illustrates why he should remain retired and he was a better commander than a politician.

Within the first 12 months we should draw down the U.S. military presence from 15 Brigade Combat Teams (BCTs), of 5,000 troops each, to 10. Within the next 12 months, Centcom forces should further draw down to seven BCTs and withdraw from urban areas to isolated U.S. operating bases — where we could continue to provide oversight and intervention when required to rescue our embedded U.S. training teams, protect the population from violence or save the legal government.

Finally, we have to design and empower a regional diplomatic peace dialogue in which the Iraqis can take the lead, engaging their regional neighbors as well as their own alienated and fractured internal population.

Again, like the Baker Commission, McCaffery is calling for a force stationed outside of Iraq to protect military trainers inside Iraq – once again recalling the Mobile Training Team strategy of Viet Nam days. And he calls for a diplomatic solution involving Iran – who doesn’t want diplomacy. If that’s not clear after this week’s Halocaust denial fest in Tehran, I don’t what clear means.

In fact, as Captain’s Quarters reports this morning, quoting from a New York Times article, even Saudi Arabia warned Dick Cheney that the US pullout in Iraq might trigger a bloodbath there. They also warned against talks with Iran. It looks like the Saudis are afraid of a proxy war between Iran (Shi’ite) and the Saudis (Sunni) in Iraq. The Saudis state that the only reason they haven’t supported Sunnis in Iraq yet is because al Qaeda is mainly Sunni and opposed to the House of Saud. (Congressman Reyes; are you taking notes?)

There is only one solution, as distasteful and extreme as it seems, and that is to remove the terror support system that resides in Iran. A system that has operated out of Iran for two-and-a-half decades in full view of the rest of the world. There’s no pussy-footing around any more. Iran has shown that it doesn’t want to be in the community of nations by ignoring calls to stop their nuclear program. The government isn’t acting in the interest of their people any longer – they are acting in the interest of a few extremists.

Yeah, Syria’s a problem, too, but they’d collapse once they lost the support of Iran.

There’s only one way to defeat an irrational player who has praised Hitler and his extermination of Jews (while denying it ever happened) and that’s with extreme measures. Not playing paddy-cake.

Category: Politics, Terror War