Senator Mitch McConnell ( r-KY) is the Senate minority leader, the top ranking Republican in the U.S. Senate and a key administration ally in congress ...and it appears that he's unable to keep quiet any longer about the mess in Iraq.
Today, McConnell told CNN's Late Editon that Republicans were "overwhelmingly disappointed" with the lack of political progress.
"The Iraqi government is a huge disappointment....So far, they've not been able do anything they promised on the political side," McConnell said. "It's a growing frustration."
"Republicans overwhelmingly feel disappointed about the Iraqi government," he added.
"I don't know what their problem is but this country has made an enormous investment in giving the Iraqis a chance to have a normal government after all of these years of Saddam Hussein and his atrocities," he said.
McConnell discussed a move by lawmakers in Iraq's parliament who want a vote to ask the United States to leave.
"I want to assure you, if they vote to ask us to leave, we'll be glad to comply with their request," he said. ( As though what we do should be determined by these ingrates!)
In other words, as your humble writer predicted a year ago , it's increasingly a case of `thanks for your time and your money.. now, get the hell out and let us bond with our jihad buddies in Iran.'
It's unfortunate that the president feels unable to admit how poorly his `Arab democracy' fetish has turned out and make the appropriate changes. The president's fixation with trying to make this work at all costs has hurt our war effort and helped to create the climate of disunity here at home.
And when administration stalwarts like McConnell are jumping ship...well, it's time to face facts and make some changes.
If after we leave Iraq Jihadists should think about using Iraq as a base to attack Aemrican interests, there is something they should think about. The US military removed the regime of Saddam Hussein in about a month. The buddies of the current Iraq1 Shia dominated government who reside in Iran tried unsuccessfully for over twenty years to remove the government of Saddam Hussein.
ReplyDeleteWhat they should consider is it is allot easier for the US military to remove a hostile government than it is to build a representative democracy from scratch. In other words as things stand right now, we can remove Iraq's Shia government in short order should it become vital to our security. They should think long and hard about that before launching any attacks on American interests.
In spite of all that has happened I still think the attempt to bring representative democracy to the heart of the Arab world was a good idea that was poorly executed. I think it could have worked. At a minimum we would have needed to: 1.) Commit enough troops to do all of the following: secure all suspected WMD sites, secure the weapons the weapons caches, secure the oil facilities, secure the ports, and seal the borders between Iran and Syria. 2.)Allow the troops we did commit to actually fight to win. The rules of engagement have been entirely to restrictive. This may have been an even bigger problem than not having enough troops. 3.)Islamic and Baathist parties should not have been allowed to participate in the electoral process. Also, no one with close ties to Iran should have been allowed to participate in the electoral process. 4.)We should have been willing to commit at least 10 years to the process. When we went into Iraq we immediately began looking for an "exit strategy." We should have been looking to reamin for as long as it took.
In order to get the necessary troops to implement number 1 above, we probably would have needed a draft. This should have been implemented after the attacks of 911. Since we never had the necessary troops to actually secure the country once the former regime was dismantled, this noble project was probably doomed from the start, however it might have made a huge difference if our troops did not have to fight under such restrictive rules of engagement. Unfortunately we will probably never know if the attempt to implement representative democracy in the middle east was a good idea or not becuase the policy was executed so poorly that success became virtually impossible. The Iraqis may yet achieve a respresentative democracy on their own but it will have to be without Aemrican support. We wil be leaving soon. Perhaps we will keep a presence in Kurdish areas but we will not be active in day to day security operations in Shia or Sunnis areas.