20 November 2006

Kissinger Rejects Iraq War!

Developing story: many prominent Republicans and Neo-conservatives are speaking out in regard to their estimation of a failed mission in Iraq. Of course, the mission was destined to fail from the outset. The war planners thought that the ends might justify the means and decided it was worth committing various acts of fraud in order to promote the invasion and occupation of Iraq. Now, after hundreds of billions of dollars have been spent on the debacle, we learn that Iraq is only worse off, we in America are no safer from terrorism (indeed we are less safe than we were pre-invasion.)

Unfortunately, it looks as if there are still some in the administration who see Iran as a way out of the failure in Iraq. Hopefully, whoever takes over at the Pentagon from Rumsfeld will have the intellectual sanity and courage to realize the disaster that would come from a unilateral preemptive assault on Iran.

Read more about Kissinger and Iraq:
Kissinger Says Victory in Iraq Is Not Possible

By BRIAN KNOWLTON
NYT

Published: November 19, 2006

WASHINGTON, Nov. 19 — Former Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger, who regularly advises President Bush on Iraq, said today that a full military victory was no longer possible there. He thus joined a growing number of leading conservatives openly challenging the administration’s conduct of the war and positive forecasts for it.

“If you mean, by ‘military victory,’ an Iraqi government that can be established and whose writ runs across the whole country, that gets the civil war under control and sectarian violence under control in a time period that the political processes of the democracies will support, I don’t believe that is possible,” Mr. Kissinger told BBC News.

In Washington, a leading Republican supporter of the war, Senator John McCain of Arizona, said American troops in Iraq were “fighting and dying for a failed policy.”
...
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/19/washington/19cnd-policy.html

This still isn't great news, because, for some reason, the policy makers don't see this as an opportunity to make a wholesale exit from Iraq.

What needs to happen is an unconditional and total American withdrawl (economic as well as military). Of course, leaving a "security vacuum" (any more than the one that currently exists) would be unacceptable. The USA must call on the neighbors of Iraq, from Iran, to Russian, to Saudi Arabia, etc. and call upon the UN; first for forgiveness, and secondly to provide the types of resources and credibility necessary to establish stability in Iraq.

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