No Exit

Even George F. Will is calling George “Warpresident” Bush’s “surge” plan to “a policy that is akin to Defense Secretary Robert McNamara's and Gen. William Westmoreland's policy in Vietnam.”   It may be important to note that we no longer have a draft and we may no longer have the ability to equip and adequately train any substantial number of new troops, even if we can somehow manage to reach recruitment goals.

Will’s editorial today compares the failed (both militarily and politically) policy of continued escalation (probably easier for Bush to pronounce than surge) with the “phased withdrawal” scenario promised by Nixon and implemented by Defense Secretary Melvin Laird and Gen. Creighton Abrams. Will Phased withdrawal work in Iraq – will it work better than it did in Viet Nam?

According to conventional wisdom emerging from the Balkan experience, about 130,000 troops would be needed to maintain order in Baghdad alone.  Currently we have 120,000 in place, but 66,000 of them are Iraqi Police whose loyalties are divided and who are often incompetent. Bush’s proposed increase is insignificant no matter how well it is received by his die-hard supporters; it may be, as it was in Viet Nam, “a recipe for protracting failure.”

I think comparison between war ravaged Europe in 1946 and Iraq 60 years later is apt, yet we have no ability to implement anything like the Marshall Plan that allowed the return of enough order and stability and quality of life to make a Democratic Europe a possibility.  Without infrastructure; without electricity, water, heat, medical care and the ability to earn a living – and without immediate prospects for any improvement, Civil war will persist.  As Gen. Wesley Clark says, the escalation will  "put more American troops in harm's way, further undercut US forces' morale, and risk further alienation of elements of the Iraqi populace."

In short, we can’t supply enough troops to pacify the country by force. We can’t rebuild the country well enough to bring about peace and we can’t get rid of the administration that got us into this.