The Future of Iraq

As the savage killing continues in Baghdad, a new poll says that 75% of Americans want American troops to come home. The head of the British Army wants his troops to come home, echoing the thoughts of American generals revealed in Bob Woodward's book.

The situation in Iraq may be even worse than we know. Right now there is an American carrier group heading for the region, which some are interpreting as a sign that Bush intends to attack Iran as his October surprise. But could it be something else--like military support for a sudden withdrawl of American forces from Baghdad or other parts of Iraq, if the Iraqi government falls?

The spectre of a repeat of scenes from the fall of Saigon is just one of the resemblances of Iraqnam to Vietnam. The recent revelation that Henry Kissinger, a man whose existence proves the reality of zombies or perhaps vampires, has been a close advisor to Bush on Iraq only makes this even more surreal. The failure is being repeated-- once again the U.S. is prolonging a war it cannot win, with devastating political, geopoltical, economic and moral consequences.

As if to emphasize this, President Bush is going to Vietnam next month. Once (when young George Bush supported the war from the safe haven of a specially acquired National Guard spot), Vietnam was the place where our future was at stake, where good and evil were supposedly fighting to the death. If we lost Vietnam, the dominoes would fall and the zombie of Josef Stalin would be ruling over Indianopolis. We lost Vietnam. Nothing bad happened here as a direct consequence. The region did not become part of the Soviet bloc, or Chinese Communists, or anything else. Now the U.S. and Vietnam are major economic partners.

Some are beginning to look past the elections to the inevitable change needed in Iraq policy. The bipartisan commission chaired by James Baker, sometimes credited as the man who made Bush President for his management of the postelection Florida episode, is likely to be cover for a change.

What will happen? From an AP report that's mostly about how Bush's rationale for Iraqnam keeps changing:

Dan Benjamin, a former Middle East specialist with the National Security Council in the Clinton administration, said the administration is overemphasizing the nature of the threat in an effort to bolster support.

"I think the administration has oversold the case that Iraq could become a jihadist state," said Benjamin, now with the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "If the U.S. were to leave Iraq tomorrow, the result would be a bloodbath in which Sunnis and Shiites fight it out. But the jihadists would not be able to seek power."