Or, How to Tipoff your Enemy About What to Do
There are idiots and idiots in the world, but the Dems have an unusual portion of them in their ranks. What they are shouting from the top of the Capitol Building is that Bush should set forth a detailed plan for leaving Iraq, including "benchmarks" that the public could understand! Imagine!
What benchmarks would they recommend? Fewer car bombs and IEDs; that is, greater safety? So all the terrorists have to do is keep on planting IEDs and sending suicide bombers into the cities to foil that benchmark, which they are doing now. Or, they could stop for several months.
Enough well-trained Iraqi soldiers and their leadership? Are they mad? Give a Sunni control of 50 battalions of Sunni/Iraqi infantry and you will have another insurrection. The army must be watched very carefully, lest it become a big threat to the emerging democracy. We supply that watchdog function.
Electricity throughout Iraq? That is an Iraqi responsibility, especially for protection of the generating plants and distribution lines. We provide technical help and reserve forces. The terrorists can control whether there are disruptions to the lines at any time.
Oil production up to par? Same answer. Oil is their major product, and the Iraqi must see that it is protected.
A stable government? Not a good benchmark! There is yet not enough "glue" to keep the focus on Iraq, and not each region and each sect. We provide some glue at the moment.
An emerging economy? Too vague to provide a benchmark.
The terrorists can force us to go either way--to stay or to leave--by simply managing and attacking the stated benchmarks to their advantage. They can go dark for some months, and watch the benckmarks rise up, and our troops leave as a result. Then they can emerge to wreck their havoc with far less danger from our troops. It is better not to set up marks that the terrorists can manage.
We need an overall assessment of the strength of Iraq after some time has elapsed, not some set of "false and spoofable benchmarks."
# posted by Mannning @ 1:16 PM
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