Iraq Quagmire: Option I

The Iraq Study Group is busily putting the finishing touches on their final report that is supposedly going to save Boy Bush's hide and his presidency. Usually when such a council is set up it is purely for political cover, in other words the president has already decided on “the plan”, and the expert panel is merely configured to add credibility to “the plan.” In this case, however, I don't think Bush is pursuing the panel's advice for the expediency of political cover. I believe Bush really doesn't know what to do. We'll help him consider his options.

George W. Bush deserves our compassion. Seeing him recently meeting with Vietnamese leaders I was struck by how vulnerable and pathetic he looked. His hair grayer, his brow more furrowed, Bush did not seem to have the same irrepressible joviality. He apparently saw no irony in bluntly stating that Iraq is no Vietnam while being entertained in a beautifully manicured palace in the heart of Hanoi. He's right, Iraq is leagues worse.

What to do in Iraq? There are really only two courses to consider: Go heavy, or go home. The American people are weary of this debacle and the president has been derelict in his duty of planning and fighting this war. The time for making this decision is years late. Be that as it may, when the ISG comes out with their recommendations, the president should not expect a silver bullet. There is none, and none will be forthcoming.

Senator John McCain (R-AZ) has recently taken the Barry Goldwater stance that the USA has a responsibility to the people of Iraq and we should fulfill this obligation by sending more troops in an overwhelming effort to achieve stability. Of course, he conveniently never puts a number on that additional force, but I'm sure it would need to be in the hundreds of thousands. From McCain's recent op-ed:

“We must be honest about the war in Iraq. Without additional combat forces we will not win. We must clear and hold insurgent strongholds, provide security for rebuilding local institutions and economies, arrest sectarian violence in Baghdad and disarm Sunni and Shia militias, train the Iraqi army, and embed American personnel in weak and often corrupt Iraqi police units. We need to do all these things if we are to succeed. And we will need more troops to do them.

They will not be easy to find. We should have begun to increase significantly the size of the Army and Marine Corps the day after 9/11. But we did not. So we must turn again to those Americans and their families who have already sacrificed so much in this cause. That is a very hard thing to do. But if we intend to win, then we must.

It is not fair or easy to look a soldier in the eye and tell him he must shoulder a rifle again and risk his life in a third tour in Iraq. As troubling as it is, I can ask a young Marine to go back to Iraq. And he will go, not happily perhaps, but he will go because he and his comrades are the first patriots among us. But I can only ask him if I share his commitment to victory.”

On one level, I share McCain's sentiment that the Iraqi people deserve our forthright attempt at achieving a livable resolution to the conflict that we started. The question McCain never answers is what it would take to send the necessary troops. The troop levels in Iraq (I'm not even considering the Afghan disaster) have ranged from 125K earlier this year to approximately 145K now after the president canceled the tour leaves of several thousand Marines, National Guard and Army troops. We know this isn't enough to fulfill McCain's plan. The current military has approximately 1 million men and women, of which 1/5 can be deployed at any given time. To get the requisite 400K combat ready soldiers to make up an overwhelming contingent, we would need 2 million active duty. In effect, we would need to double the size of the military immediately, and that would also mean immense outlays for equipment.

Where can McCain get troops? We have already lowered recruitment standards, paid unprecedented sign-on bonuses, and canceled honorable discharges in order to keep men and women in uniform. McCain has no words of advice, except to “ask a young Marine to go back to Iraq.” McCain doesn't answer how many will say, “No, thank you” and how many times will he need to ask that “young Marine” again and again?

In the reality-based world, the only way to acquire enough soldiers to put 400K into Iraq is to dust off the military draft. Indeed, the draft. Literally millions of young men have already signed up for conscription, we already have their names, and the president only has to get the computer to spit out a few hundred thousand random birth dates, and voila! We have a huge frickin' Army. Instantly.

If McCain's stance is actually agreed upon, as long as we are indulging our fantasies, I would add one more recommendation: the only fair thing to do would be to first ask anyone under 30 years-old who voted for Bush in 2004 to do the responsible thing, the patriotic thing, the moral thing. They should be asked to enlist voluntarily and take infantry assignments. If they believe in this war, then we should give them the opportunity to walk the walk.

After all, what would be fair in drafting those who may have voted against this radical administration in the first place? Send them to war? No way. George W. Bush has saved us all from the dreaded weapons of mass destruction, he has bravely rescued Iraq from Saddam, and now our "crusade" has hit a few bumps in the road. Sen McCain is generously offering a solution-- and the very least these young Republicans can do is offer to serve.

Next post, we'll discuss the traitors who want to “cut and run.”