On the President's Troop Surge

The NY Times editorial today commenting on the President's address of 1/10/07 claimed that Bush has failed the country on the war in Iraq, that the troops need to be brought home rather than surged, and that the lack of honesty from a president who seems hell-bent on offering the same gauzy platitudes of freedom and democracy and winning the war on terror is not being forthright with the public. The editorial further claimed that what we need is a plan for withdrawal so that the civil war can proceed.

This position, however well intentioned, is a non-starter. I think we should blame Bush for the specious and deceptive reasons that we have become involved in Iraq. I would be in favor of impeaching him if I were in Congress, using the country's time to finally hold accountable its president (and so fulfill the frustrated desire of the public in the pardon of Nixon by Ford). But this desire to punish an aggressor-president should not obfuscate the rationality of our position in Iraq presently.

Our troops are on a peace-keeping mission at present, trying to maintain civil order amongst the various ethnic groups who are vying for their share of the fledgling Iraqi state, while also engaging in conflicts with Al-Qaeda and terrorist groups. It is a hell of a situation we are in, but consider the consequences on the Iraqi people themselves if we withdraw. There will be a bloodshed civil war that will ensue of tremendous proportion. This would allow opportunistic states like Iran access to the control over the southern Iraqi oil fields, to the expansion of the Islamic state envisaged by these madmen in their desert caravanserai.

No, our troops are ideally situated to perform this task--and Bush is right to try to solicit regional support for the Iraqi government and other states like Britain who have sent troops. But we cannot depart now without causing a disproportionate amount of suffering on the people of Iraq who, it is only rational to assume, want only peace, security, and to make a living. There is no time like the present to employ the unemployed so as to eliminate grievances of exclusion and joblessness--and Bush, in his address, pledged monies towards seriously accomplishing this end. That is correct and Bush, for all of his sins, is right to maintain this line--even if it should bankrupt our country and destroy our credibility in the world.