James Baker: Don’t Stay The Course
By Justin Gardner | Related entries in Foreign Policy, The War On Terrorism, War
Backing up what John Warner said on Friday, James Baker is publicly acknowledging that things have to change in Iraq…and soon.
WASHINGTON, Oct. 8 � James A. Baker III , the Republican co-chairman of a bipartisan commission assessing Iraq strategy for President Bush, said today that he expected the group to depart from Mr. Bush’s call to “stay the course.�In an interview on the ABC News program “This Week,� Mr. Baker said, “I think it’s fair to say our commission believes that there are alternatives between the stated alternatives, the ones that are out there in the political debate, of ‘stay the course’ and ‘cut and run.’ � [...]
Today, he was asked about statements last week by the Republican chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, Senator John W. Warner of Virginia, who said Iraq was “drifting sideways� and urged consideration of a “change of course� if the Iraqi government cannot restore order in two or three months.
Asked if he agreed with that timetable, Mr. Baker said: “Yes, absolutely. And we’re taking a look at other alternatives.�
And yet something tells me that this is coming much too late in the game for any changes to be effective. The bell has been run and civil war is not only upon us in Iraq, it’s destined to get much, much worse in the coming months.
And besides, Baker isn’t going to suggest anything that he hasn’t run past Bush first, and my confidence in his decision making with regards to the WoT isn’t too high right now.
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October 9th, 2006 at 2:28 pm
I am not a war hawk but I do not think there is a viable alternative for fighting Islam (notice that I did not say militant radicals) somewhere. We can pretend that Islam is not the enemy but unfortunately all of Islam is either fighting us or supporting those who are fighting us. Politicians may cry peace, peace but there is no peace.
October 9th, 2006 at 2:51 pm
We don’t need their oil. Solar rooftop electric and plug-in Electric cars can easily replace most gasoline in cars.
But Bush is hooked up with the oil companies, and won’t break Chevron’s hold on the batteries needed for EVs. Chevron inherited worldwide patent rights to the batteries, and sued Toyota.
October 9th, 2006 at 5:51 pm
Of course we don’t need their oil! We have plenty of it ourselves but all those left wing enviromentalists won’t let us touch it. Pretty sure Bush and all those oil companies that we hate so much would love to cut out that middleman in Venezuela and drill here to keep all the profits for themselves. Hmmm who really is causing the problem of high oil prices in the middle east? Makes you think.
October 9th, 2006 at 6:00 pm
Apparently everyone forgets that America created the Northern Alliance-Taliban-AlQaeda-you-call-it in order to fight the Russians
to a standstill in Afghanistan, and hired and trained OBL to run it.
Then we walked away, leaving Afghanistan to crumble into ruin,
until we got the chance to sucker punch Saddam over Kuwait and
crush his his too-cheap-for-Big-Oil @ $12/BBL Iraqi production.
Then we walked away, leaving Iraq to crumble into ruin under
sanctions, but left our military bases in Saudi, Islamic holy land,
blithely, deliberately ignoring the beliefs of over a billion people.
Imagine if Mexico saved our bacon from England, but left four
air battalions ringing Washington DC, and put sanctions on NYC.
And whenever you tried to cross their security lines, they talked
to you in Spanish, and didn’t understand what you were saying
(and raped your daughters and burned all the witnesses alive).
OBL didn’t target Shea Stadium or Grand Central Station. They
targeted symbolic colonial trade and occupation targets. It was
entirely Bush’s fault, that this Islamic insurgency is SNAFUBAR.
If numb nuts had just stayed the course at Tora Bora, the war
would be over, and we would have already reconstructed Kabul.
And the jihad would be over, if we had got the hell out of Saudi,
since we have bases in Qatar and Turkey and Egypt. If GWB had
just run OBL to ground at Tora Bora, we’d still have our $330B,
and there’d be 2,714 living US soldiers instead of dead ones.
Old numb nuts, that greedy, lying SOS.
Now comes Iran, and oops, North Korea, it’s time to bail on our
promises to rebuild Afghanistan, time to bail on our pledge to
create democracy in Iraq, time for Bush to turn, cut and run!
Run Forrest, run!! : )
But I’m sure Rove will find a way to pin it on the Democrats,
just they way they blamed US for WTC and Katrina unbuilt.
(I want my Cold War dividend, and I want it now!!!! Ha,ha,ha. )