Snatching Tragically Epic Defeat From the Jaws of Seriously Historic Defeat

Want to read something crazy? Ok, go over to the Weekly Standard and read Fred Barnes' article on Bush's strategy for Iraq. Go on, do it. It's not that long, and it's a riot. For instance, it includes the following bit of pompous hilarity:

Now Bush is ready to gamble his presidency on a last-ditch effort to defeat the Sunni insurgency and establish a sustainable democracy in Iraq. He is prepared to defy the weary wisdom of Washington that it's too late, that the war in Iraq is lost, and that Bush's lone option is to retreat from Iraq as gracefully and with as little loss of face as possible. Bush only needed what his press secretary, Tony Snow, called a "plan for winning." Now he has one.

Ooooh -- a plan! Shame on me for thinking that 3 and 1/2 years into a war is, in fact, too late to get a plan. So, what does this plan entail? Ready? Ok, it's the genius idea that security has to be a established before political unity can be a serious goal. Now, that is funny, isn't it? Because these are the same people who told us that the absence of security didn't matter in the face of all of those waving purple fingers. Remember that? No? Well, you don't have to, because Bill Kristol repeated that "the war is winnable because the Iraqis voted" line again tonight on the Daily Show, and he'll do it again on the rebroadcast on Wednesday.

If you refuse to read the Weekly Standard on principle (or because it sucks), just watch the Daily Show for more of the journal's brilliance. Either way, you'll find out that we can still establish the suddenly all-important security through: more troops! Barnes' piece in the Weekly Standard cites 50,000; others are bandying about the number 20,000; Kristol only likes to voice particular numbers if he can wave his hand in the air to indicate vagueness, so who knows what number he thinks it'll be. But at any rate, we're adding some more troops, and the Standard tells us why (brace yourself):

The Keane-Kagan plan is not revolutionary. Rather, it is an application of a counterinsurgency approach that has proved to be effective elsewhere, notably in Vietnam. There, Gen. Creighton Abrams cleared out the Viet Cong so successfully that the South Vietnamese government took control of the country. Only when Congress cut off funds to South Vietnam in 1974 were the North Vietnamese able to win.

Oh man. What to say about that? First, go read my Vietnam/Iraq post below. I did warn you. Then cry a little. We had half a million troops in Vietnam. Even if you believed this bullshit about snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, it would still be a preposterous comparison. Reading these people is like looking at the world in a fun-house mirror. How, please tell me, how, can they think that it's a good idea to justify an Iraq strategy based on its similarity to a Vietnam strategy? Have they ever visited Earth before?

But hey, I'm with Harry Reid. Let's let them do this. Put in the 20,000 (I'll bet major ducats they can't find 50,000; if they get close, it'll be by shuffling, not adding). Unfortunately, it won't make any difference, and here's why. The other day I heard an interview with Rajiv Chadrasekaran, author of Imperial Life in the Emerald City, explaining that during the looting after the fall of Baghdad, when the National Museum was being pillaged, and American soldiers were standing around with orders not to get involved, all it would have taken to protect the museum would have been a few shots in the air from the Americans. Because at that point, they took us seriously. They don't anymore, and an additional 20,000 or 50,000 or even 100,000 troops isn't going to get back that original fear.

So why go along with it? Well, for one thing we can't stop them. For another thing, it gets from over our head the sword of "you pacifists wouldn't let us try to win". And, I really think, it will rid us of McCain. He was planning to run on a "if they'd only listened to me" strategy. Now he's going to have to face down the long barrel of "they listened to me, and whoops." And that's where we stand. All there is left to do with Iraq is calculate whose political career it can still destroy.