AMERICAN FUTURE

William Shawcross, “Deny Islamists Reward in Iraq,” (The Australian):

Al-Qa’ida and the Shi’ite terrorists hope to inflict defeat on Republicans in US elections in November that will weaken American commitment to the future of Iraq and thus strengthen Islamism throughout the world . . . [Maliki] will probably have to make more deals with grim people such as Moqtada al-Sadr, head of the Mahdi army, to get them to support a unity Government, not undermine it. Easier said than done, I acknowledge . . . There are those who claim a deal could be made with Iran and its client Syria in a compromise settlement of Iraq’s problems. It’s hard to envisage. Both governments have done everything possible to destroy the new Iraq . . . a premature pullout would condemn Iraq and the region to unbelievable horror. And it would be a famous victory for our Islamist enemies, who declared war on the West long before we went into Iraq and liberated 23 million Muslims. If we allow ourselves and the overwhelming majority of Iraqis to be defeated, that defeat will be the first of many in the region and the world. The Islamists will give no quarter.

Caroline Glick, “Postcards from Saigon,” (Jerusalem Post):

Today, the public debate in the US revolves around one question: When are we leaving Iraq? The conventional wisdom has become that US operations in Iraq are futile. Due in large part to politically driven press coverage, Americans have received the impression that the US cannot succeed in Iraq and that consequently, their leaders ought to be concentrating their efforts on building an exit strategy. Comparisons between the war in Iraq and the Vietnam War are legion . . . when the media wonder if one can compare the battles in Iraq today to the Tet offensive, what they really want to know is if they have successfully convinced the American public that its military has lost the war in Iraq . . . While Bush clearly knows what he wants to do, he is hard-pressed to succeed. Not only are the Democrats and the media trying to undercut him, members of his own administration – and particularly Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and her colleagues at the State Department – are subverting the president’s agenda . . . Rice is turning the Iraqi government into a scapegoat for the ongoing jihad. If the government doesn’t get its act together, she intimates, the US will feel free to wash its hands of the matter. It won’t be a US defeat, but an Iraqi failure. That is, far from extolling American success, she is paving the way to justify an American defeat . . . Today the only high-level US diplomat who believes that the purpose of diplomacy is to advance US national interests and not to achieve agreements for their own sake is US Ambassador to the UN John Bolton . . . For Israel, the results of the American debate over the future of the war in Iraq are of critical importance. A US retreat will place Israel in grave danger. The eastern front . . . will make a comeback – replete with massive quantities of arms and tens of thousands of trained jihadi soldiers who will believe that they just won their jihad against the US. Moreover, if the US retreats, the IDF will find itself facing a US-armed and trained Shi’ite army . . . The leaders of the Democratic Party today compete amongst themselves to see who can be more defeatist. If in the November 7 elections the Democrats take control of both houses of Congress, or even just one of them, the push for a US retreat will grow stronger.

Michael Graham, “Keeping False Hope Alive for Dem War Plan,” (Boston Herald):

What are you (sorry, make that “we”) Democrats going to do about Iraq and the Islamists? See, I’m a one-issue voter, and my one issue is defeating the Islamist threat facing Western civilization . . . This is priority number one and Bush just isn’t getting the job done. But I think I must have missed a meeting or accidentally deleted an e-mail from Moveon.org, because I still haven’t seen the Democratic plan to fix Iraq and kick terrorist butt . . . what do you mean there isn’t a Democratic strategy for terrorism? There’s gotta be . . . what kind of political party has no war plan at a time when we’re actively at war? After all, the Democrats’ position on stopping terror can’t be to abandon democracy in Iraq, stop wiretapping, end coercive interrogation and reveal our secret tracking of terror money abroad in The New York Times. That’s crazy. No, there’s got to be a serious Democrat war plan . . . When and how to use force, how giving Iraq to the Islamists today will help defeat them tomorrow – you know – the plan?

Editorial, “The Point of Departure,” (The Guardian):

The crucial point is that the American and British departure must be planned with the care and understanding that was so lamentably . . . absent when the invasion took place. Yet this is not happening. Honest planning requires that the people who created the war admit the original vision of a liberal democracy is dead. Yet they still peddle the comfortable fantasy that British and US troops will hand over to able Iraqi forces, when these are failing from Basra to Baghdad . . . New policy is needed . . . The starting point must be an open assessment of the weakness of Iraq’s government and security forces . . . a clear schedule for departure must be established alongside a new strategy that offers some hope of recovery. The aim should be to give the Iraqi government advance notice so it can prepare and take responsibility. The result should be to strengthen the resolve of Mr Maliki to tackle the militias. The realisation is growing that the coalition presence is discouraging conciliation, not aiding it. A phased withdrawal would concentrate the minds of the Iraqi government and army . . . Any temptation to hang on must be resisted, even if the pressure comes from the Iraqi government or, more certain, from the US, which wants Britain to offer political cover and to protect supply lines to the north. Once set, the date must be stuck to. And, crucially, the British plan must proceed independently . . . with Britain gone, Iran . . . would no longer have an interest in maintaining instability . . . Greater Iranian – and Syrian – involvement must now become a fundamental element of policy . . . Proponents of partition should remember what happened in Palestine, Yugoslavia, and India in 1947. In Iraq the result would be an increase in ethnic slaughter, especially in Baghdad. The better model is a loose federalism with devolved powers and shared revenues, especially from oil. The Kurdish north was defended from Saddam after the first Gulf war and it has survived as Iraq’s only success after the second. Its autonomy must be sustained. But it cannot offer a model for the central and southern provinces . . . Total collapse of the elected government can only be averted if order is brought to Baghdad . . . Money now spent on the war . . . should pay for an international force, of limited duration, made up of troops from largely Muslim states such as Indonesia.