Editorial: Iraq/Is it becoming a lost cause?
September 18, 2004 ED
http://www.startribune.com/stories/561/4987168.htmlThe news about Iraq this week has been all bad. Indeed, if you read what the experts say, Iraq may now be a lost cause. Some sensible people are beginning to utter the unthinkable: Bring the troops home and refuse to pour more blood and money into an obvious -- and monumental -- U.S. defeat. That is not an easy notion to contemplate for two reasons: what it would leave in Iraq and the Middle East, and the explosive repercussions it would have for the United States at home and abroad. But that it is being uttered aloud in polite company underscores a reality Americans must face: There is no good road forward in Iraq.
...On the campaign trail, an odd double standard has appeared: Sen. John Kerry gets hammered unmercifully for not having what critics believe is a viable plan for dealing with Iraq. But President Bush gets a pass on 1) having personally created this monumental American disaster and 2) having no plan before the war and having none now to clean it up. Kerry does deal in nuance, but that can be a good thing when the alternative is to push blindly ahead with a policy that is demonstrably wrongheaded.
Too, as author and journalist Seymour Hersh observed recently, the reason Kerry's solutions may seem lacking to some is that there simply are no good answers to Iraq.
Meanwhile, young Americans keep dying. The 17 days of September, through Friday, cost 55 American lives, the highest rate since April. Bush insists progress is being made in Iraq; all the signs on the ground and most of the opinions from experts say otherwise. Going forward,
Bush owes the American people an honest assessment of what the situation is and an honest explanation of how he intends to deal with it.edit-link