IRAQ - The Pointless Question

"‘Your Iraq Plan?’ Is a Pointless Question" by Andrew J. Bacevich, CommonDreams.org

Recall that Bush saw Baghdad not as the final destination of his global war on terror but as a point of departure. He imagined that liberating Iraq might trigger a flowering of Arab democracy. He was counting on Saddam Hussein’s ouster to jump-start a regional transformation. He expected a forthright demonstration of U.S. military might to enhance America’s standing across the Muslim world, with friend and foe alike thereafter deferring to Washington.

None of that has come to pass. Baghdad has become a cul-de-sac. Having plunged into a war he cannot win, Bush will not relent. Iraq consumes his presidency because the president wills that it should. He has become Captain Ahab: His identification with his war is absolute.

As a consequence, the “global” effort aimed at eliminating Islamic terror, launched back in September 2001, has narrowed in scope. Today the global war is global in name only. In reality, it has become a war for Mesopotamia.

Our political attention, then, needs to turn to whether the president’s would-be successors can do what Bush cannot: acknowledge our failure in Iraq and look beyond it.

“What’s your plan for Iraq?” was the right question back in 2002 and 2003 - although it went largely unasked and almost completely unanswered then. But as we approach the 2008 presidential election, though the tragedy of Iraq continues to unfold, that question is moot.