Looking for an Exit

How to Leave Iraq?

I normally don’t write about intensely political issues, but the Iraq war has captured my interest. Before I go much further, I must give a giant “mea culpa” for the fact that I actually supported this war back in March of 2003. Still rankling from 9/11, I thought that part of the world needed democratic and secular examples to live by. I thought that (1) Bush had a plan and further I thought that (2) we had excelled in Afghanistan. Not only was I wrong on those two points, the motive itself was mistaken. Bush’s father (Bush 1) and his own advisor Brent Scowcroft had strongly advised W against invading Iraq. Now, the chickens are here to roost and I can only suppose they’re squawking, “Dad was right”. W, being religious might honor the word of his own father. I’ve pondered whether Bush 1’s new affinity for Bill Clinton is a dig at W. Bush 1 also had Ted Kennedy as a speaker at his A&M Presidential Library last year. Maybe the two Bush’s should’ve finished the father-son fistfight they were about to start, so many years ago.

We have basically toppled a house of cards, and have not a clue how to put it back. There are several other houses of cards nearby, that we could clobber now with ease: Syria, Iran, and Saudi Arabia. On a metaphoric roll: a Bush bull has been allowed into the china shop. He’s going down the aisle of stoneware swishing his tail mightily. Dear God, he’s now headed toward the Wedgewood, raising his horns! How do we get this bovine out of a place where he never belonged? Poor china shop, poor Iraq.

Iraq now has three splinter groups, two of which have a strong desire to secede from the others – Shias and Kurds. The Sunnis and Shias have shown extreme willingness to blow people to smithereens to make a political point. It’s an ultimate human fallacy known as suicide bombing. The Kurds are the best behaved, showing interest in democracy and women’s rights. Kurds however could pull the rug from Turkey and other countries that also have freedom-relishing Kurd populations. Shias have cozied up to Iran, which is getting nuclear weapons and would like to blow Israel away. Wonder if W is getting the picture? The “perps” in Iraq are crazed and violent – they probably need someone equally stern to smack them back into place. Oh, but we deposed him – he’s on trial now. Saddam once said, “You’ll need 11 men to replace me”. Now it seems like an understatement. You’ll need 11 men and a standing US Army. Saddam’s Iraq allowed secular worship and women’s rights along with his evil despotism; his continued reign would’ve allowed thousands of Iraqis and 2000+ Americans to continue living. Would his nastiness have been any worse than what they have now? The secularism and women’s rights are about to slip away under “Sharia” in southern Iraq. And we haven’t even touched on who gets the oil resources in the predominantly Shia south. Any more fuel needed for this fire?

Well, all we need to do is train the Iraqi police and army. Those are the two groups that get infiltrated, or suicide-bombed as they wait in line to apply for the job. I wax toward being what Spiro Agnew dubbed a “nattering nabob of negativism”. Well, let’s be positive and imagine, what – what on Earth could straighten this mess out by the time 2008 elections roll around? I’ll have to leave that to someone else – this is a non-fiction blog. 