Stepping Back From the Abyss

Honest dissent and the voices of opposition have played a critical role in our nation's history. I appreciate the variety of voices in the blogosphere that have been writing and commenting on the situation in Iraq.

I have been giving much thought to my support for the McCain/Lieberman plan, particularly the reasons for supporting the plan. One of the chief reasons I find the plan attractive is based in psychology: it feels wrong to just give in and be consumed by hopelessness and failure. In other words, doing something is preferable to doing nothing.

Unless, of course, one is sinking in a pit of quicksand. In the case of the quicksand, it is best to remain calm and fight the urge to thrash about uncontrollably. Perhaps some kind of fighting withdrawl, but withdrawl nonetheless, is the best course of action at this time. I just don't know. And because I don't know, I don't feel comfortable supporting a surge in troops at this time. It just seems too big a gamble given that the plan would be directed by George Bush.

I'm reminded of a scene from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade in which Sean Connery has the great line with regard to the bumbling Marcus Brody, "You didn't drag poor Marcus along, did you? He's not up to the task."

Right now, President Bush is Marcus Brody, and he is most definitely not up to the task.

As an aside, read George Will's column on the surge. The arithmetic he lays out is staggering and should give anyone pause.

There is, however, this sobering arithmetic: Based on experience in the Balkans, an assumption among experts is that to maintain order in a context of sectarian strife requires one competent soldier or police officer for every 50 people. For the Baghdad metropolitan area (population: 6.5 million), that means 130,000 security personnel.

There are 120,000 now, but 66,000 of them are Iraqi police, many — perhaps most — of whom are worse than incompetent. Because their allegiances are to sectarian factions, they are not responsive to legitimate central authority.

They are part of the problem. Therefore even a substantial surge of, say, 30,000 U.S. forces would leave Baghdad that many short, and could be a recipe for protracting failure.

Given the nature of the enemy, I have no doubt that we will have the opportunity and solemn duty of squaring off against the radical Islamists in the near future, when a new President has hold of the reins. Perhaps with the benefit of hindsight we can avoid the mistakes of this Administration. For now it is time to lick our wounds and go home.