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Thu. Apr 08, 2004

Realistic Solutions, Please

Echoing part of what I wrote the other day, Thomas Friedman’s column also suggests that Iraqi pressure must be brought to bear: “Armed, masked young Arab men — motivated by the toxic mix of radical Islam, anti-Americanism and humiliation, and high on the drug of defeating the hated foreigner, even if it will be ultimately self-defeating for them — can be turned back only by an Iraqi army motivated by a sense of nationhood and a desire for self-determination. We cannot want a decent Iraq more than the Iraqi silent majority. Because this is an urban war, and U.S. soldiers having to fight house to house inside Iraqi cities cannot win it. Only Iraqis can.”

And, other than a phrase or two, these next three paragraphs describe my thoughts well:

This was always a long shot. But, I believe, after 9/11, trying to build a decent state in the heart of a drifting Arab-Muslim world — a world that is manufacturing millions of frustrated, unemployed youths — was worth trying. But it takes resources and legitimacy, and the Bush team has provided too little of both.

From the start, this has always been a Karl Rove war. Lots of photo-ops, lots of talk about “I am a war president,” lots of premature banners about “Mission Accomplished,” but totally underresourced, because the president never wanted to ask Americans to sacrifice. The Bush motto has been: “We’re at war, let’s party — let’s cut taxes, forgo any gasoline tax, not mobilize too many reserves and, by the way, let’s disband the Iraqi Army and unemploy 500,000 Iraqi males, because that’s what Ahmad Chalabi and his pals want us to do.”

From the day the looting started in Baghdad, it has been obvious that we did not have enough troops to create a secure framework and to control Iraq’s borders. As a result, local militias began to spring up everywhere. If you turn on your TV, you can see how well armed they became while Donald Rumsfeld was insisting we had enough troops there to control Iraq.

I’m right there with ya, Tom. Until you go off the rails into LaLaLand with your conclusion: “I know the right thing to do now is to stay the course, defeat the bad guys, disarm the militias and try to build a political framework that will hold the now wavering Shiite majority on our side — because if we lose them, the game is over. But this will take time and sacrifice, and the only way to generate enough of that is by enlisting the U.N., NATO and all of our allies to make the development of a decent state in Iraq a global priority.”

Let me point this out in two ways. It’s been one year since Saddam fell. We have whatever help we’re going to get. It is not as insubstantial as some would have you believe, but yes, it could be better.

But it isn’t going to be.

Every time I hear someone say that we’ve got to bring in NATO, the UN, the RIAA, or some other group, I can’t help but think, “yeah. that would be great, wouldn’t it? Nice fantasy. But, what are you really going to do to solve this problem, now that you’re done with your little pie-in-the-sky daydream?”

Secondly … well, let’s just assume for the sake of argument that tomorrow, the UN and NATO, and even the RIAA did a 180, and said they were ready to talk about how they can help more. When do you think that help would arrive? July? Want to be really optimistic and say June?

Have you seen the news just in the last six days? What makes you think the Iraqi people have six weeks?

Deal with the existing reality, ugly as it might be. It’s ours. We fix it. By ourselves, along with the Iraqi people. Or chaos descends. Long before other help can arrive.

If you’re looking for some other way, calling for outside help to join us, or waiting for some kind of International White Knight … you’re part of the problem, in that you’re delaying the solution in hopes of resources that likely ain’t comin’.

Use what you’ve got, and can bring to bear on your own. Come up with realistic plans that rely on nothing else. Hopefully, such “leading by example” will draw others in to help. But you better come up with a plan to do it all by yourself. Otherwise, you’re just jerkin’ off to some alternate reality that does not exist.

And isn’t likely to.