The answers we will not get

In The News

Few months ago I listen to a radio interview with the author of “Nixon and Kissinger: Partners in Power”. In the interview the author described how Nixon and Kissinger, although realizing its failure, kept the same strategy in Vietnam because they thought that admitting failure will damage Nixon re-elections chances. In the interview Robert Dallek described how Nixon and Kissinger had a very clear and realistic assessment of the reality in Vietnam but how publicly the kept arguing in defense of keeping the same policy - which caused the death and suffering of thousands of people.

I can only wonder if the current administration insistence on maintaining its Iraq strategy has similar motives. I’m pretty sure that would these 10 good questions had been asked, we would not get honest answers:

5. Let’s see if we have this right: We’re arming the minority Sunnis, and, even though we routinely denounce Iranian influence, we’re nevertheless arming the Iranian-backed Shiite Maliki government, which in turn is fighting al-Sadr as well as other Iranian-backed Shiite warlords. Given all these complexities, general, what constitutes “victory” in Iraq?

[...]

8. General, one of your staunchest supporters is Senator John McCain. After he returned from his most recent trip to Iraq, McCain said, “We’re succeeding. I don’t care what anybody says.” Could you please provide a more nuanced assessment? For instance, the State Department has determined that Iraq this month is providing less electricity to its citizens (58 percent of demand) that it did during the same month one year ago (66 percent of demand). President Bush originally intended to make Iraq safe more democracy. Would it be more realistic, as a measurement of success, to strive to at least make Iraq safe for electricity?

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Rogel @ April 8, 2008