Unspinnable
Tom Maguire has directed my attention to this report in the New York Sun about James Baker’s Iraq Study Group:
WASHINGTON — A commission formed to assess the Iraq war and recommend a new course has ruled out the prospect of victory for America, according to draft policy options shared with The New York Sun by commission officials.
Currently, the 10-member commission — headed by a secretary of state for President George H.W. Bush, James Baker — is considering two option papers, “Stability First” and “Redeploy and Contain,” both of which rule out any prospect of making Iraq a stable democracy in the near term.
The news of this report is so bad that it cannot really be spun.
One might say that the War for Iraq has produced some great successes (e.g., the toppling of Saddam Hussein and his government, the exposure of the UN and much of Europe as a lot of criminal degenerates, the extermination of lots of bad people, the courageous promise of three different elections, the projection of American power resulting in the destabilization of oppressive regimes in the region, etc.).
But if this President cannot plausibly talk about his achievements in nation-building in Iraq, then he will not see —in his remaining two years in power— the vindication of his stated goals.
And that is a failure. A near-term failure —for I see this war as both a necessity and the foundation for a better world to come— but a failure all the same.
