No matter what Petraeus says today about one brigade coming out early next year or not, by September many if not most brigades will be pulling back to Kuwait and the long sail home. The Army simply can’t sustain the surge without breaking, period. Even Pace knows this.
Sometimes retreats are disasters, sometimes not. Few expect this one to be akin to those Great Historical calamities, at least in immediate terms — although a fighting retreat is not ruled out.
The long term implications may be as bad if not cataclysmic. Yet Bin Laden’s throw of the dice is that he can wave a red cape and keep the Warlord impaling himself and American power on the Iraqi Tree of Thorns. That Bin Laden’s speech echoed so many Democrat themes the perfect goad. How well our enemy understands us, how ignorant and unwise we.
A Democratic majority has not forced a withdrawal to the understandable bewilderment and rage of their base. Still, they stopped in no small way the larger danger posed by the Administration — the destruction of liberal democracy here at home. Not completely — as made clear by the FISA cave in. But better than the unified government. That, to the Stiftung was always the larger peril, the war merely the most obvious.
So don’t expect alot of comment here in the days and weeks ahead about Petreaus, the blahs over this or that, etc. It’s all smoke and mirrors to the Stiftung. Our troops are going to start coming home, Dear Reader, in 2008. One way or another.
Dr Leo Strauss says
We’re glad to see Steve Clemons finally has come around to the Stiftung’s long held analysis that military action against Iran is neither imminent nor likely under the Warlord’s waning months. You may have already received his emails announcing this or seen his item over at Salon.com. Long time Stiftung readers should not be surprised.
sglover says
Sorry, but I don’t see this at all. The notion that the ‘broken military’ poses some kind of absolute constraint only holds if you consider the Idiot Prince rational and sensitive to external reality. I see no evidence of this.
I gather the Stiftung (or is it the Stiftung Dr?) is counting on institutional and bureaucratic constraints to come in play. I certainly hope he’s correct. I don’t doubt that many in the upper echelons of the “defense” establishment are less than enthused about this administration. But I see no prospect of the Congress giving them the legal backing to buck an order to, say, launch SEAL’s or jets or both against Iran. If anything, Congress seems to be lining up for a horrifying replay of its Iraq war abdication.
A Random Quote says
Meant to point out quote was Tavis Smiley.
A Random Quote says
I think blogging is overrated … I’m sure I’ll hear about that ..that’s what I think..
Comment says
A lot of GOPers would prefer a bloody retreat – at least subconsciously. They would love the stab-in-the-back possibilities for domestic politics. Most never really cared about Iraq anyway. Afterall, the gloated over bombing them and the gloried in those Abu Ghraib storied. Was there anything more insincere than Brit’s exasperated questioning of Dr. Paul over the possible fate of post Bush Iraq? Indeeed – many on the right would would welcome a sanguinary lustration in Mespot so it could be used the way Pol Pot’s rampage was/is to divert blame from Nixon et al.