Iraq - Baker

I want Baker's job. You get to head up a commission designed to tell the president where and when he has gone wrong in foreign policy. They had over 70 recommendations. I might have had a few more. Funny, there was a time when Republicans were viewed as more effective on foreign policy than domestic.

Anyway, seems it would be great fun to have a national audience as you dress down the president.

The bright side of all of this is that the USA will probably get out of Iraq sooner than later. If I was a betting man, I would say before Xmas 2007. Certainly before the 2008 elections, because Republicans know that our presence in Iraq will throw the election to the Democrats, just as it did last November. The Republicans will force Bush out of Iraq by then.

And the sooner we get out, the cheaper it is for us. This war has cost us 10 billion a month, not counting the initial run-up costs. That's real money, and it has created a debt that my great-grand children will have to pay off.

I don't like to speak for other folks, so I wont speculate on how the military folks will feel about the departure. I will leave that to them.

Now the only question is rhetoric. How do we describe our exit so as to make it graceful? Winning or losing wont do. To win, you must have a loser. I suppose we might say that the insurgents lost, but the insurgents are mostly Sunnis and we don't want to tell the new Iraqi nation that we defeated the Sunnis. Nor can we declare that we defeated the Shiites, for they are the majority of the new Iraqi government. In fact, the war against Iraq was won when we captured Sadam. The invasion always was about Sadam. We probably should have declared victory and left then. But I wont critique Bush's bush league foreign policy. That is Baker's sweat-heart job.

Probably we could exit Iraq today if the Baker commission could just come up with the right words to describe our belated "victory". "Cut and run" wont do, though I kind of like it. And since Baker didn't come up with any good words, perhaps I will try a couple. Here are a few first efforts:

1. Got Sadam!
2. Blew some shit up and blew.
3. Wham, Bam, Democracy, scram.
4. We've done all we could. Now its time for Iraq to show her qualities.
5. Our soldiers done yeoman's work. It's time to bring them home.
6. Mission accomplished: the situation in Iraq is back to normal - everyone killing each other.
7. We said we would bring democracy to Iraq. Well, apparently Iraqi democracy includes car bombs.
8. Merry Xmas.
9. We are handing Iraq over to the Iraqis in better shape than we found it, just as we promised.
10.Victory!

Each suggestion has pros and cons. Bush has proven effective in bold faced lies, so #9 plays into his foreign policy strength. #6 & #7 are tougher because they involve too much truth. I also like #4 & #5 because they utterly ignore the reality in Iraq, focusing instead on what matters to us...us.