White House slow as molasses reacting to shifting Iraq
The administration’s Iraq policies can be described with one word—tardy. Every move they make seems to be 2 to 3 years late. For example, Iraq needed a troop surge several years ago. Give John McCain credit for steadfastly calling for more troops despite the administration’s repeated denials.
Unfortunately, Pentagon proof that Iran is supplying the insurgency falls into the tardy category too. We’ve known about Iranian and Syrian meddling for quite awhile. Why is the administration just getting around to dealing with it? These are all ongoing issues that needed to be dealt with a long time ago.
They’ve really missed a golden opportunity by waiting until the deck is stacked against them to make changes. With a hostile Congress and a militia friendly Iraqi prime minister, the odds that Iraq becomes a stabilizing regional influence are dramatically cut. The president is throwing the Hail Mary; I just hope somebody is in the end zone to catch it.
Archived in: Congress, Iran, Iraq, John McCain, SyriaFebruary 12, 2007 at 12:04 am | Trackback
3 comments
This apparent indifference to Irania meddling has always confused me, although I haven’t any ideas on what to do about it. The Administration’s border policies HERE are at least as incomprehensible.
We can only imagine that SF and other forces have been doing a lot of intervention that isn’t reported. My Ranger connection confirms some of that, but intervention and termination with extreme prejudice works for armed intruders; it is much less effective in locating ordnance and mechanicals that find their way in concealed.
Interesting thoughts on this subject from Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit, via Hugh Hewitt. Reynolds suggest low-intensity pain infliced on Iran. Kill radical mullahs and Iranian atomic scientists (Mosaad did such a thing recently), arm and support insurgencies in the country and put the mullah’s expat business interests out of business. I’d support more vigorous measures, but I doubt Bush has it in him to do the above. The new tone probably also applies to Iran.
I agree we need a stronger stand, but our politicians don’t have the political will to do it.