Lagniappe

 

Scott Sullivan:
McCain lacks victory plan for Iraq

The key to Senator McCain’s attack strategy against the Democrats is to assert that Barack Obama would fail as US Commander in Chief. In contrast, Senator McCain says he would prevail over US adversaries. McCain is intimidating the Democratic Party with allegations of incompetence in national security affairs. Such allegations are unfair and untrue.

McCain even goes beyond allegations of incompetence to assert that Democratic Party, with a few exceptions does not oppose international terrorism. This McCain-Bush allegation is also false.

While it is true that the Democratic Party will play politics with terrorism legislation, the Democrats are not the problem. Although the US is losing the war on terrorism in Iraq, the reasons for this US defeat are more with Senator McCain and the Republicans than with Senator Obama and the Democrats. The reasons for the US defeat in Iraq will be explored in a separate memo. It is sufficient to say at this time that the US treated Muqtada al-Sadr as an enemy when he is a Communist (Iraq’s Tito) and a friend. Meanwhile, the US treated the Kurds and Iranians as friends when they are Iraqi Nazis and enemies.

In short, Senator McCain, President Bush and the Republicans are far out of bounds when they accuse Obama and the Democrats of being soft on terrorism. Republican Party allegations that the Democrats are soft on terrorism should rejected by the American people for three reasons.

First, the Republican Party took the US to war against international terrorism. The primary responsibility is thus with the Republican Party to come up with a convincing, bipartisan Victory Plan to defeat the terrorists in Iraq, and soon. Let me be blunt. FDR brought the US into WW II. FDR obtained Republican Party support for US participation in WW II because he knew how to crush the Nazis and Japan.

Instead of preparing a Victory Plan on terrorism in Iraq, McCain and Bush talk of a struggle against terrorism in Iraq that would last one hundred years or more. This is ridiculous.

The US Congress should reprimand McCain and Bush for these defeatist pronouncements. Any further support for the concept of a long war in Iraq against terrorism from any administration official, including President Bush, should not be tolerated. The American people demand and are entitled to immediate results in the war on terrorism.

Again, the responsibility for developing a Victory Plan rests with MfcCain, Bush, and the Republican Party. If McCain and Bush fail to develop such a plan, it is unfair to expect the Congress, the CIA and DIA, as well as the US military, to come up with such a plan.

Moreover, in the absence of a Victory Plan, CIA and DIA intelligence assessments will be unfocused and worthless. Even successful military initiatives like Operation Surge will fail in the absence of a comprehensive McCain-Bush Plan. Contrary to Bush’s assertions, he alone is responsible for the success of US policy in Iraq, not GEN Petreaeus.

Once such a McCain-Bush Victory Plan is before Congress and is supported by the American people, efforts by the Democratic Party to play politics with the terrorism issue will come to a halt.

Above all, if Senator McCain and the Republicans are clueless about prevailing in Iraq, they should not attack the Democrats as a way of diverting public attention away from Republican party shortcomings.

Even as McCain and Bush fail to develop a victory plan to crush terrorism, they are taking Iran as a partner in Iraq against the Arabs and as a partner in the Balkans against Serbia and Russia.

In Iraq, McCain and Bush have excluded the Arab states from Iraqi defense planning while bringing in Iran. As a result, Iran’s president Ahmadinejad has transferred thousands of Iranian military personnel to Iraq, with US permission, where they now occupy top positions in the new Iraqi army and police forces.

Moreover, the US has gone so far with appeasing Iran that Bush has approved an Iraqi government decision to invite Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran’s Nazi president, to visit Baghdad. Such a policy is equivalent to an FDR decision to approve a Hitler visit to Paris in late 1940, after the Nazi invasion of France.

In short, McCain and Bush have aligned US forces in Iraq with Iran, which is the leading state sponsor of international terrorism.

What is worse, with their anti-Serbian adventure in the Balkans, McCain and Bush have alienated the US from Russia and China. Without support from Russia and China the US has no hope of containing Iran.

In summary, during WW I or WWII these McCain-Bush policy transgressions would have been seen as giving aid and comfort to the enemy. So it is today. Again, the problem is not Obama and the Democrats. The problem is McCain, Bush and the Republicans.

 

Scott Sullivan is a former Washington government employee. Petroleumworld not necessarily share these views. Petroleumworld does not necessarily share these views

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Petroleumworld News 02/21/08

Copyright© 2008 Scott Sullivan. All rights reserved.

 

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