By Paul Retain
Buffalo, NY – After nearly four years of war in Iraq - a war that never should have been started - our leadership has made such a mess of the situation that, as everyone knows, there is now no good solution.
Some people want to pull out of Iraq very quickly. Some want to set a future date. Bush says press on, just with more of the same, but toward what? Our politicians - Republicans and Democrats - none of them are proposing anything but a next step. None of them are providing any kind of plan for how to get to the best possible solution.
Bush's new plan is more of the same - to escalate our military effort in the war while requiring that the government in Iraq also escalate its effort. The objective is said to be victory, but it can really only be to suppress the civil war in Iraq and the resistance to the occupation. Pour more U.S. troops into Baghdad and guess what - the insurgents and the death squads and the militias fade out of sight, temporarily. Bush might be tempted then to declare "Mission Accomplished," but nothing will have been solved.
What is the most a "surge" can do? Temporarily it might suppress almost all the resistance in Iraq, even including that of the Iraqi government. At best it could get us back to April 2003, just after we drove Saddam Hussein's Iraqi government from power. Full circle, except that now there are a million internal refugees and a large proportion of the best educated middle class Iraqis have fled the country. Mr. Bush may think he can get it right the second time around. Really? But then, Mr. Bush lost contact with reality a long time ago.
If he still had some contact with the real world, he would have chosen a different course. Realizing that there are no good options left - certainly no military victory is possible - he might have chosen to think about the Iraqi people as well as about the men and women of the U.S. armed forces. How might he have done that?
He might have said: "The Baker-Hamilton Commission recommends that we talk with Syria and Iran. President Carter calls for consultations with all of Iraq's neighbors. We'll follow the advice of these experienced leaders, because we know that we need help. We've made a mess and don't know how to clean it up. We also realize we need to minimize additional damage to Iraq and its people. We know that Iraq's neighbors don't want unconstrained war in Iraq, with refugees flooding across their borders and unrest and war threatening to spread throughout the Middle East."
Bush might have continued: "So, we propose to consult individually and collectively with all of Iraq's neighbors - Iran, Turkey, Syria, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait - and the factions in Iraq. We will appeal to all of them to join in finding out what now would be best for Iraq, its people, and the local community of nations in the Middle East."
Bush might have said to the people of Iraq and the region: "I apologize for the mess we've made. We now need all of you to tell us how best to deal with the awful wounds we have inflicted on Iraq and the region. We recognize that we have the responsibility to accept and support whatever wisdom you, who are directly involved, can bring to bear on this terrible situation. We ask for your help, your ideas, and we are ready to listen to you.
"We know that we cannot just walk away from this, and we want to provide whatever help and support you will be able to use to enable Iraq to become calm and begin reconstruction and recovery. We want to leave as soon as you think you can handle the situation and tell us to leave."
That would be a plan for how to reach a solution, and the best of the options remaining.
Would this be humiliating? Yes. Would it be defeat? No. It would be a great victory for everyone because it would be the truly honorable thing to do. It would be a victory for good sense, in which all of us would share.
Do I think George Bush will do this? No, because that would require courage and honesty and humility. No, it's more likely that George W. Bush will lead us into war with Iran.
Listener-Commentator Paul Reitan is an emeritus professor at the University at Buffalo.
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