An Exit Strategy Bush Can’t Ignore By: Joe Conason

An Exit Strategy Bush Can’t Ignore
By: Joe Conason

Date: 11/28/2005

http://www.observer.com/printpage.asp?iid=11911&ic=Conason



What alarms everyone else—including many members of the President’s own party—is that that they still can articulate no plausible plan to get our troops out. Rather than distracting themselves with partisan bickering, the President and Vice President ought to seize any opportunity to extricate us honorably from the terrible mess they have made.

Now such a chance has appeared, if only the White House has the wit to recognize it.

The quandary for Americans in Iraq, now that the old rosy scenarios have been discarded, is that both leaving and staying are likely to result in disaster.

If we withdraw, the entire country will be engulfed by civil war, creating a haven for Islamist terror and a threat to regional stability, not to mention a victory for our enemies. If we remain as occupiers, the civil war will continue to expand anyway, attracting support for Islamist terror, draining our resources, and further damaging our army and international prestige. We continue the occupation because of the insurgency, even though the occupation only strengthens the insurgency.

Too often omitted from American discussions of this dismal situation is the widely shared and forcefully expressed desire of the Iraqis themselves—namely that our troops should go home as soon as possible, and that a schedule must be established for their departure.

The latest is we pull the troops out and relocate our Air Force over there to continue the killing of the locals.

1) 2006-House and Senate change hands. Democrats hold both by comfortable amounts, if not veto and filibuster proof. DINOs are booted out. GOP incumbents have been slapped into cuffs because of Abramoff inquiry.

2) Cheney drops dead of heart attack. No point in his going to prison, is there? Still, if he won't oblige, that's the second choice: impeachment, conviction, jail. Scramble for replacement between remaining unindicted GOP: Snowe, Hagel, McCain.

3) Bush is impeached, tried, convicted, and sent off to Hague while a suitable prison is constructed.

4) I always wake up at this point in a haze of rainbows and fireworks. I'll let you know how it ends if I ever get that far.