ISSUES....
Inside,
confidential, off the record
Kristol's
White Flag on Terrorism
Last year
William Kristol, the US's leading Hawk and former advisor to VP
Cheney, envisioned the war on terrorism to prevail first in Iraq
and then
move on to Syria, Iran, and the entire Middle East. The Muslim
autocratic
regimes would give way to democratic regimes, and the proverbial
lion would
lay down with the lamb. At least, that was the plan.
This week,
Kristol is willing to settle for winning in Baghdad. His latest
op-ed, "Reinforce Baghdad, (Washington Post, 12 September
06.), raises the
alarm for Baghdad and calls for immediate reinforcements before
the city is
lost altogether.
Kristol also
calls for a significant increase in the number of US troops in
Iraq. Without this increase, Iraq is lost, he says.
Now, Bill
Kristol is no fool. He is fully aware that President Bush is as
likely to approve a troop increase for Iraq, just before mid-term
elections,
as he is to change his objections to marriage for homosexual couples.
In the profession
of politics and journalism, this is called posturing,
i.e., advocating a totally unrealistic position as a way of covering
the
history of earlier bad recommendations on the same issue. In this
case,
Kristol is saying that continual US military escalation is the
only way to
victory, never mind the cost. He never gives a thought that the
US has no
chance of prevailing in Iraq, no matter what the level of escalation.
Such
posturing is an insult to the public, and it reveals that Kristol
has
entirely lost his bearings on the subject of terrorism.
That the US
plan for Iraq is fatally flawed is revealed in the story of
Anbar province. The day before Kristol's column appeared the Washington
Post described a USMC intelligence report that says regardless
of the number
of US troops assigned to Anbar province, which is a strategic
prize for the
Sunnis that comprises 30% of Iraqi territory, Anbar is lost to
the US.
Despite the commitment of significant US resources, Anbar belongs
and will
continue to belong to al-Qaeda.
Likewise,
Baghdad's Shia districts will continue to belong to Muqtada
al-Sadr, despite recent punishing US raids on those districts.
What is
Kristol's next allegation as he deflects blame for the Iraq debacle,
that
the USMC and the United States Army have dropped the ball? Here
is his
scapegoat - the US military lost the war in Iraq by not requesting
more
troops and not pressing for continual escalation.
No, Mr. Kristol,
you lost the war because you never understood Iraq and the
intensity of the Iranian threat to Iraq. In fact, under your plan,
Iraq was
made a sitting duck for Iran. This is why today the anti-Iran
message of
al-Qaeda and Muqtada al-Sadr is getting across, while your pro-Iran
message
is ignored.
Let's look
at the issue of whether or not to partition Iraq. The US
intervention was designed to turn partition into a reality, as
evidenced by
US support for the Kurds, support for pro-partition provisions
in the
constitution, and support for pro-Iran political parties in the
new
government.
The Iraqis,
like you Mr. Kristol, are no fools. They knew without being
told that the partition of Iraq would be the end of Iraq. This
is why they
resisted the US. In the eyes of Iraqis, US forces were only a
stand-in for
Iran, who would take power as the US withdrew.
Under these
conditions, were this happening in the United States, which side
would you be on?
Flawed US
policy brings unhappy consequences. The unhappy consequence of
flawed US policy in Iraq is that now al-Qaeda and Muqtada al-Sadr
will shape
the new Iraqi state. This is not fair, but it was so decided from
the very
first day US troops entered Iraq. Moreover, good news is still
possible.
if al-Qaeda and Muqtada al-Sadr get it right, by cooperating against
Tehran,
the US will have a chance via Iraq, for the first time, to confront
the true
enemy, Iran. In this case, Mr. Kristol wll have a success, not
a failure,
on his hands.
ISSUES....
Is an independent
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