An astute analysis of the Iraq war situation by the Ace of Spades. It touches on many themes familiar to supporters of the war, and by supporters I mean realists who understand that the best things we do as a nation are the hardest, and most costly.
Ace takes moral cowards like Andrew Sullivan to task, and points out that the magical thinking that makes liberals such miserably poor judges of what America can and should do in the international sphere is infecting even those who once understood what it takes to get things done. It's not a choice between the war in Iraq and a perfect war where everything goes right and US soldiers always act as perfect gentlemen, but a choice between doing nothing and doing something. Grow up or shut up, I say to the doubters and pooh-poohers. You're not being part of any worthy solution if all you do is bemoan the difficulties of bringing democracy and justice to a place where it has not been for millenia, if ever, without providing a better way to get where we all want to be.
Like Ace, I think endless talk of 'exit strategies' is lame and beside the point. Viet Nam (which in my view was a success in that it demonstrated a willingness to contest global communism wherever it cropped up) wasn't problematic because we didn't have an exit strategy, it was problematic because there were no concrete goals to be achieved. You can't just send troops over and have them hang around and get killed without objectives. John Kennedy is the one who made that mistake, and although LBJ and Nixon didn't fare much better, they inherited a war without strategy.
Iraq is no such war, and will not be, unless we cut and run. Let's not, mmmkay?
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