Did the State Department hear what General Petraeus said about Iran?

Gen. Petraeus, nobody’s tool and nobody’s fool, laid out the Iranian challenge bluntly. He didn’t lay out an Iranian policy — not in his job description. That’s what they are supposed to do over at Amb. Crocker’s shop. At Foggy Bottom, however, there is no policy to speak of except to say, regardless of the evidence, that things are getting better.

Gen. Petraeus succinctly told his congressional inquisitors: “We cannot win Iraq solely in Iraq.” He’s right, of course. And we surely cannot win the greater war against radical Islam in Iraq.

The war can’t be won absent dealing with Tehran. Six years after 9/11, six years after President Bush’s bold admonition to state sponsors of terror, it’s worth asking, yet again: How do we plan to do that?

Let’s see ... war in Afghanistan (25 million) and in Iraq (60 million) ... leading to war in Iran (100 million) ... and why not Syria, Gaza, southern Lebanon, and ... maybe we’ll be in Pakistan and Indonesia and Egypt and Somalia and who knows where else when the Islamicists takeover those places ... and why wasn’t this discussed when we decided, what the heck, let’s remove Saddam Huissen?

This is part of a poem I wrote, on my son’s 15th birthday, three years ago, thinking about the war we got into when I was a young teenager, and grew up to be a part of:

Today I see my own son growing
And our soldiers again in a war
This time in a place even far more remote
Than the places we’ve been before

General Petraus’ rationalization for us remaining in Iraq is: All the alternatives are worse.

Now isn’t that special!

I am not an isolationist like Ron Paul, but Ron Paul was right to vote against authorizing the use of force in Iraq.

Now we move from war against the muslims, to nuclear war.

If General Petraus were to think this is where we are headed, to nuclear war, I don’t think he would be saying all the alternatives are worse. He would be thinking how the hell do we get out of this mess.

But, he thinks if we’re in Iraq for another 2 maybe 3 years, perhaps we can leave with a government in Iraq that can defend itself.

BTW assuming we’re not engulfed in a nuclear holocaust, we’re going to get socialized medicine, the gay agenda, high taxes, and environmental controls on how we live our lives.

Refarding the populations of the three countries ... Afghanistan 31 m., Iraq 27 m., Iran 65 m.

Poetry?

The problem with folks like you is that no matter how much financial, medical, or food aid we give them they still want to convert kill or enslave us. That’s the absolute bottom line. It doesn’t matter if you’re a good poet or so open minded about other cultures that your brains leak out.

They want to convert, kill, or enslave every single non-muslim in the entire world.

They want to CONVERT, KILL, or ENSLAVE EVERY SINGLE NON-MUSLIM IN THE ENTIRE WORLD.

If you don’t think the Iranians will go nuclear as soon as they get the bombs you’re nuts.

General Petraus’ rationalization for us remaining in Iraq is: All the alternatives are worse.

Well, they are worse, a lot worse. But that is only part of the reason.
I don't see that we had any other choice, unless we wanted to try the ostrich approach or the appeasement approach [to terrorism].

It is well to keep in mind that our alternatives were not any better before going in. Also, I believe you should realize that when others force circumstances upon you, they don't usually give you an easy way out.

Did you ever get pushed around by the neighborhood bully? Yeah, they don't usually present you with very palatable options, either.

Yes, I was from time to time pushed around by the neighborhood bully. Usually I held my own. One time however, coming to the rescue of my younger brother, I was very badly beaten up. I also twice rescued women being attacked in the New York City subways. My draft number was 365 and I joined the U.S. Army as a volunteer. I do trust that you seriously consider whether a candidate for president has the physical courage we need.

Regarding our alternatives in the past:

1.We did not have to invade Iraq. In terms of the justification for going in, we are now aware that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction to give to terrorists to use against us (assuming it had close enough ties to terrorists). I opposed the authorization of the use of force in large part because I have never been impressed with our intelligence. Turns out I was right. Iraq would have remained a festering hell hole, as are about two dozen other places in the world.

2,We could have pursued an incremental policy, such as supplying the marsh Arabs. This kind of policy worked well in the north, and has worked well in other places in the world although not all the time.

3.Upon toppling Saddam, and re-organizing the government of the country, we could have withdrawn. This would have avoided the impression to radical Arabs that the government of Iraq was a puppet government, and Iraq might not have become the center of the war on terror. The various indicators we have of progress in Iraq were on an upward trend through the formation of the permanent government. They turned south during 2006, and have only been stabilized this year because of the surge.

4.With the success of the surge, we can now announce we are withdrawing our ground troops in victory on our terms. This would allow us a chance to hold the presidency next year, and continue to support the government in Iraq with training, intelligence, technical support and air power. A likely alternative, at this point, is a Congressional cut-off of funding, as what happened in Viet Nam. I really don’t think we will be in Iraq for long following the elections of 2008.

Bush, in 2000, said we should not get involved in nation-building. For a lot of reasons, he was correct, He changed his thinking during the 9-11 mindset, as Republicans did generally, and the issue has now become a partisan one with the sides lining up differently than they did during the 1990s.

After getting deeply involved in Iraq, Bush has not shown any subtlety, such as threatening our so-called ally in the central government there with withdrawal. Jack Kennedy and Ronald Reagan were able to cut their losses, but not Bush.

Anticipating a 40 year war with Islamic terrorism, we have to move away from our wartime/emergency footing, to a peacetime/police and intelligence footing, with economics and cultural exchange (what Reagan called “constructive engagement”). With a free-market economy, we will only get richer, leaving the retrograde countries of the world increasingly in the past. Freedom is our real assymmetric advantage, As I said, I am not an isolationist like Ron Paul. I really am a Reagan Republican.

Even in retrospect I think invading Iraq was needed. There is very credible evidence that there were WMDs before the invasion. But it was needed anyway. One of my reservations has been that the military has been systematically gutted by the low lifes in congress for far too long and we simply don’t have the necessary manpower to do it right. IMO, Our standing military should have double the manpower that it has. All the time, not just now.

Our mistakes have been in the period after the overthrow. And the civilian mismanagement of the military occupation has been quite bad. No question there.

I don’t know if it is the case, but we need to have very seriously upgraded our intel on the ground. That has been lacking for too many years.

Again, I have no way of knowing if it is happening, but we seriously need to play hardball in the dark alleys of the world. By that I mean a lot of wet work. Knives in the gut, agents as judge and jury.

Realistically, what we do militarily to fight Islamic terror is doomed to failure unless domestically we make a major turn around and stop all of the multicultural appeasing. I don’t see that happening. Arabic public schools in NY, foot baths in airports. Things like this are dooming us regardless of how many bombers we catch or kill. We are rotting from within and very few seem to see it.

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