The Opinionated Bastard

PLAN E....Is George Bush in "fantasyland" regarding Iraq, as John Kerry says? I realize that's the fashionable position among lefty partisans, but it's honestly hard to come to any other conclusion these days.

We all know the wildly erratic background. In the beginning, administration ideologues were convinced we'd be welcomed with flowers. Within a few months we'd install Ahmed Chalabi as president of a liberated Iraq, draw down the occupation force to about 30,000 troops, and declare victory.

Administration never said that. "Long hard slog" is what I remember. Repeat after me: "Neocon think tanks are not the administration". Read Woodward's book, and you'll see that the administration knew Iraq was going to be tough.

That really was fantasy, but when that plan almost immediately fell apart there was no Plan B on the shelf. So the administration ginned one up posthaste: disband the Iraqi army and stay around for a while. Jay Garner objected, so he was fired and Jerry Bremer was called in to be our new proconsul.

Actually the original plan was not to disband the Iraqi army at all. The problem was, the Iraqi army just went home. Good for our troops, bad for stability. C'est la Guerre.

But that plan didn't work out too well either. By November scattered attacks had grown into a full-blown insurgency and Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, apparently tired of Bremer's strongman act, insisted on quick elections. After some panicky discussions back home and a call to the UN, Plan C was unveiled: we would turn over power on June 30 and hold elections seven months after that.

Again, convenient history. The plan has always been to have elections ASAP. President Bush is a firm believer in Democracy and Liberty.

But that still didn't work. The turnover proceeded on schedule, but security didn't get any better. Fallujah and Najaf became rebel strongholds, hamhanded planning turned Muqtada al-Sadr into a Shiite hero, and a dangerous insurgency became a full-blown guerrilla war.

That's your spin. The answer I got from Iraqis is that the turnover was a brilliant success.

So now we're on Plan D, a feebly disguised version of Plan C: the elections will proceed as scheduled and that will fix everything. It's unlikely that anyone below the level of cabinet secretary actually believes this, but it's impossible to say so because there's an election coming up. An American election, that is.

Nope, same old plan. The elections will proceed on schedule because we're sending the Iraqis a message: To participate in the Iraqi government, you don't need guns, you need votes. If the insurgents don't lay down their weapons, they won't get a vote...

That election, and the political considerations that go along with it, have been driving our military strategy for the past two years. Before the war, we passed up a chance to take out terrorist mastermind Abu Musab Zarqawi — for political reasons. We invaded with too few troops — for political reasons. We lowballed the cost of the war — for political reasons. We ignored the UN and then turned around and pleaded for their help — for political reasons. Then we installed Iyad Allawi as president behind the UN's back — for political reasons.

General Frank's plan for invading Iraq was fucking brilliant. We didn't need those troops, and we still don't need more soldiers, we need more policemen. There are Iraqis lining up every day to become policemen, so we're good to go. As far as ignoring the UN, have you read any Iraqis opinion of the UN? Besides the UN cut and ran from Iraq months ago.

And just recently we've learned that the Marines were yo-yoed in and out of Fallujah — for political reasons. The president has bizarrely dismissed his own intelligence agencies' analysis of Iraq as "guessing" — for political reasons. He's ignored the advice of his own generals about troop requirements for the upcoming elections — for political reasons. And assaults on Baathist enclaves have been postponed until December — for fairly obvious political reasons.

All unfounded allegations. Our military people in Iraq are making their own decisions, President Bush has been pretty hands off as far as micromanaging the military goes. It's true that you can read some statements by some generals saying more troops, but not by the guys who are actually commanding. I put that down more to the remnants of the Cold War Pentagon then to good planning. As for the CIA report from July, look at the calendar.

And Thursday's press conference was just scary. It's no longer clear if George Bush is merely a cynical, calculating politician — which would be bad enough — or if he actually believes all the happy talk about Iraq that his speechwriters produce for him. Increasingly, though, it seems like the latter: he genuinely doesn't have a clue about what's going on. What's more, his staff is keeping him in a sort of Nixonian bubble, afraid to tell him the truth and afraid to take any positive action for fear that it might affect the election.

You don't win wars (or elections) by talking like a loser. There are the people shoveling the shit, and there are the people criticizing how the shoveling is going. All Kerry can do is criticize and not even constructively: his "plan" for Iraq is exactly what the President is doing, except he promises to give Chiraq a blowjob.

So things will just get worse, since no one is willing to admit the truth and no one is willing to propose serious action to keep things from deteriorating further — at least not until after November 2nd. But by then it will be too late. And when the Iraqi elections fail, what happens then?

What's Plan E?

The left's record on this is pretty bad. First the war was going to be a quagmire, but it wasn't. The handover wasn't going to happen, but it did. I suppose you're going to be right someday, a stopped clock and all that, but if this is an example of your stunning analysis, it will take awhile.