Reply #63: Gene Lyons "gets" it!

[FrenchieCat]

Beginning with a trenchant column in The Washington Post and a subsequent appearance on NBC News’ "Meet the Press," Clark has begun a calculated assault on the Bush administration’s Iraq policy from the right and left simultaneously.

Clark lays down what he calls "a threepronged strategy: diplomatic, political and military" to deal with the realities the Bush administration ignored in its half-baked belief that American invaders would be greeted by flower-throwing throngs. Almost none, frankly, has any likelihood of being enacted. Hire 10,000 Arab-American translators? Convene a regional security council to hash things out with Iraq’s neighbors, i. e., Iran, Syria, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, etc.? Not gonna happen.

And then? "If the administration won’t adopt a winning strategy," Clark writes, "then the American people will be justified in demanding that it bring our troops home." He doesn’t pretend that would be a good thing. Asked about the consequences of retreat in an online forum, Clark concedes that "an exit that leaves behind violence, chaos and civil war will be viewed as a clear American defeat. And it will supercharge terrorist recruiting, increase problems for American diplomacy... and increase the danger closer to home." Clark only implies that retreat could end up being the least bad option.
http://www.nwanews.com/story.php?paper=adg§ion=Editorial&storyid=127033