Perry, ok, I’ll try to not be partisan as well. I appreciate that you want what is best for the country, and I think I can understand some of your frustration. (You should realize, though, that George Will has been lukewarm at best about the Iraq mission from before it started. Contrary to popular belief, there’s been much more diversity of opinion about this war among conservatives than among any other political group. Don’t assume that a prominent conservative opponent of the war has had a change of heart; he may have felt that way all along.)
For me, I’m frustrated with the president for a couple of things, neither of which I think are deal-breakers in terms of supporting him going forward. First, they should have seen the insurgency coming. We knew Saddam was completely overmatched; so did he. He’s crazy, but he’s not stupid. Insurgency is the way to go against a superior force, and it’s the only way to make Americans go home.
I’m more frustrated that the president hasn’t done a better job explaining the facts on the ground the past 5 years. He’s in a great position to explain his position on a regular basis, and he should know if he doesn’t his opponents will, and they have.
If Bush explained the course of the war better, and how we’ve adapted to the insurgency, I think he would have a lot more support. The fact is we can’t be beaten on the battlefield. If you want to do housing analogies, I think the anti-war “we create 10 terrorists for every 1 we kill” sounds a lot like the flipper’s “I can afford 10 more houses for every one I buy.” Mathematically that can go on for 9 cycles before one guy owns every house on the planet, and everyone else is a terrorist. We can replenish our side much faster than the enemy can theirs. We’re training the Iraqi army, and as we train soldiers and they get some experience, they can train more themselves. Last week we won over almost everybody in Anbar (that’s the province Ramadi and Fallujah are in). More important than getting more riflemen – which is also nice – that’s going to get us a camelload more intel. The bad guys are in the bubble here. They’ve been getting lots of press, and hanging around longer than expected, but they’re unsustainable. Meanwhile, Cheney’s been saying the insurgents are in their last throes for almost exactly as long as everyone on this forum has been saying the same thing about real estate. We’re all right about the end state, but our timing has been off. If Bush explained the fundamentals behind the al Qaeda bubble – how they shoot themselves in the foot by shooting Muslim civilians in the face; how 99 of 100 Iraqi encounters with US troops are a pleasant surprise because our troops are mostly normal people, while 100% of Iraqi encounters with our enemy are a nightmare because our enemy are barbaric; how the enemy needs the populace to fear that we’re leaving, and how we diminish that fear every hour we stay; how we offer a rebuilt, representative government while the enemy offers nothing but death and destruction – if Bush explained all that as well as Rich explained the bubble here, I think fair-minded people would agree that while we may not be able to predict the day it ends, we’re looking at an enterprise in the insurgency that can’t go on indefinitely. There’s no fundamental support for it.
