Another political rat disowns Iraq
Yesterday Colin Powell disowned Iraq, and today it's Gingrich.
I know that the idea that Iraq is going downhill isn't a revelatory insight, but looking at this as a political move, it tells me that Republicans outside the administration are so certain of a bleak future in Iraq they are willing to stake their political futures on it.
Powell and Gingrich are not outside analysts, they have access to insiders and do talk to the "commanders in the field." So read these disavowals on Iraq as a consensus opinion.
This is not a lame duck. It is a failed presidency.
VERMILLION - Newt Gingrich, the former Republican Speaker of the House, told students and faculty at the University of South Dakota Monday that the United States should pull out of Iraq and leave a small force there, just as it did post-war in Korea and Germany.
"It was an enormous mistake for us to try to occupy that country after June of 2003," Gingrich said during a question-and-answer session at the school. "We have to pull back, and we have to recognize it."I'm finding all of these disavowals of Iraq quite worrisome. Anyone who didn't vote for this war seems to be trying to add distance from the issue which tells me that the expectation among insider Republicans is that things are going to get irretrievably worse.
I know that the idea that Iraq is going downhill isn't a revelatory insight, but looking at this as a political move, it tells me that Republicans outside the administration are so certain of a bleak future in Iraq they are willing to stake their political futures on it.
Powell and Gingrich are not outside analysts, they have access to insiders and do talk to the "commanders in the field." So read these disavowals on Iraq as a consensus opinion.
This is not a lame duck. It is a failed presidency.
posted by mikevotes at
12:29 PM
3 Comments:
It was an enormous mistake to try and occupy all the country with the forces we had. And the planning too.
Call a spade a spade here.
Mean time, I know some Phila USMCRs that get to go there in July.
Outstanding.
By
Bravo 2-1, at 2:38 PM
My comments are directed at Newt, not you. Just to make clear.
By
Bravo 2-1, at 2:38 PM
I didn't take that as criticism.
But just to take a contrary opinion, because that's how I'm feeling this afternoon, we might have had the right number of troops if we had held local elections 90 days after the fall of Baghdad with national elections 90 days after that.
At that point the violence was still coming from mostly sunnis and ex baathists, but a slim minority. If we had put out the carrot of elections, the various factions would've been organizing for elections rather than civil war.
But, once the Bush admin looked at the probability in that first election that Sadr-type Shias would've won the lion's share of early offices, they cancelled Garner's planned elections.(That was Bremer's decision)
Now, whether those early elections would've prevented civil war I don't know, but there would've been a recognized government and far better organized army.
Just being contrarian. I'm not sure I believe it.
Mike
By
mikevotes, at 2:53 PM
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