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Today is November 18, 2006. General John Abizaid, regional commander of U.S. forces, appeared before the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations committee three days ago and yesterday before students at Harvard University. He says he wants to "stay the course." Mark my words: if we "stay the course" in Iraq, in six months the insurgents whom our forces have been fighting will not be diminished one bit in power. In other words, our forces will have gained nothing while losing more of our own people. Leaders sometimes prefer to continue doing what they are doing rather than face up to unpleasant alternatives.
In responding to a question from a student at Harvard, General Abizaid acknowledged that our presence in Iraq is an aggravation. He recognized that only a minority of Iraqis favor our being there. This is no surprise: a poll conducted in May 2004 by the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq revealed that 92 percent of those Iraqis questioned see the United States forces as "occupiers." Only 2 percent described the U.S. as liberators. So where does this leave us and the government in Iraq? The latter needs to find a political solution to the crisis it is in. More U.S. troops in Iraq would be our attempt at a military solution, but Iraq's government is not asking for this and Abizaid discounts it as an alternative. The political solution for Iraq's government is to bring into the government those people who do not want us in Iraq -- people whom we have been getting killed fighting. Some in the United States are not going to like this, but that is their decision to make, not ours.
November 26
During an interview on Sixty Minutes broadcast today, General Abizaid said "we must stabilize Iraq," and he said that he is not opposed to putting more U.S. troops into Iraq. The idea that 20,000 more U.S. troops is going to stabilize Iraq is fantasy.
Copyright © 2006 Frank E. Smitha. All rights reserved.
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