Danielle Pletka exposes the numerous resolutions and bills brought forward by the "troop-cappers and conferencers and tribunes of redeployment and training who now dominate the US Congress" for what they are: blueprints for defeat in Iraq.
At the root of the failure to devise better strategies is a flaw: No plan other than Bush's seeks victory. Yes, it is crucial that the Iraqis compromise politically, and indeed, territorial integrity is important. Training the Iraqis is vital if the US is ever to exit Iraq. And fighting terrorism is America's top foreign policy priority. But the prerequisite for all these important pieces to fall into place is security for the people of Iraq.
There is no question that incompetence contributed to the manifest lack of security in and around Baghdad. In order to move forward, however, we must learn from those mistakes. Lesson one: If the Iraqi people cannot trust the Americans or their own armed forces to deliver security, they will turn to the militias and tribes and gangs that will. Lesson two: A light military footprint and efforts to propitiate Sunni insurgents and their sponsors encourages violence. As the US military learned from success at Tal Afar, victory facilitates compromise, and more men mean victory.
Update: John Kerry just smeared US service men and women on the floor of the US Senate. He said that our troops are not motivated. And added that capping troop levels won't effect their mission. Here's my transcription.
Surge doesn't resolve the issue of Iraq. American soldiers cannot solve the issue. Only Iraqi politicians can. We've lost all contact with what's reasonable in this effort. Shia and Sunni politicians are jockeying for position under cover of a US security blanket. The fundamental differences between people who have lived their before we were there and after we will be gone need to be solved. American with guns cannot solve that. Our soldiers are being asked to sacrifice without a reasonable policy on how to conduct this war. The troops understand what their mission is. Capping troop levels won't effect that. Problem with American troops is not training it is motivation. The enemy is motivated, In the streets of Gaza, Beirut Baghdad.
An escalation raises the stakes, provides more targets. Raising the troops sends the message to the enemy that we are desperate, preordaining the failure of diplomacy by signalling to the enemy that they only have to wait for Bush's "hail mary" pass to fail.
