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This is an editorial by Charles Krauthammer who is known to be conservative.
That doesn’t make it any less of a good editorial.
I don’t agree or disagree with his conclusions. I’ll leave that up to you.
Written by GussAmid the Senate’s all-night pillow fight and other Iraq grandstanding, real things are happening on the ground in Iraq. They consist of more than just a surge of U.S. troop levels. Gen. David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker have engaged us in a far-reaching and fundamental political shift. Call it the 20 percent solution.
Ever since the December 2005 Iraqi elections, the United States has been waiting for the central government in Baghdad to pass grand national accords on oil, federalism and de-Baathification to unify and pacify the country. The Maliki government has proved too sectarian, too weak and perhaps too disposed to Iranian interests to rise to the task
The Democrats cite this incapacity as a reason to give up and get out. A tempting thought, but ultimately self-destructive to our interests. Accordingly, Petraeus and Crocker have found a Plan B: pacify the country region by region, principally by getting Sunnis to join the fight against al-Qaeda.
This has begun to happen in Anbar and Diyala. First, because al-Qaeda are foreigners. So are we, but — reason No. 2 — unlike them, we are not barbarous. We don’t amputate fingers for smoking, decapitate with pleasure and kill Shiites for sport.
Third, al-Qaeda’s objectives are not the Sunnis’. Al-Qaeda adherents live for endless war and a reborn caliphate. Ultimately, they live to die. Iraqi Sunnis are not looking for a heavenly date with 72 virgins. They are looking for a deal, and perhaps just survival after U.S. troops are gone.
~J~ Says:
July 20th, 2007 at 12:53 pmVisit ~J~
It’s funny in a strange way that the very people in Congress who insisted the president listen to the generals and get new generals who could get the job done, and Petraeus was confirmed to be that general by an 88-0 vote in the Senate, are now the same ones complaining about that strategy. They also wanted more troops.
Surely the American public’s memory isn’t that short. It’s almost as though now that the end is near for Al Qaeda and for our part in the war the same ones who were armchair generals are complaining. What is it about a victory militarily and politically in Iraq they don’t want us to achieve?
The full troop-strength for the surge has only been in place for a couple of weeks and is working everywhere except Baghdad.
Maliki needs to go. He’s inept and too loyal to Shiites.
~J~ Says:
July 20th, 2007 at 12:56 pmVisit ~J~
I should add that we won the war in a matter of days. It’s winning the peace that has been so elusive, but is within our grasp, or enough within our grasp to soon turn it over to the Iraqi police and military and let their government do whatever. If they turn against us and line up with Iran then so be it. At least it will be their doing. We are just giving them the opportunity to have freedom. It depends on them to take that opportunity or to squander it.