The original article is apparently for subscribers only. But Andrew Sullivan and Kevin Drum provide some information from the pro-Iraq War group Stratfor that basically says they've lost confidence in the US ability to "win" anything meaningful in Iraq.
Sullivan's quotation from Stratfor:
The issue facing the Bush administration is simple. It can continue to fight the war as it has, hoping that a miracle will bring successes in 2005 that didn't happen in 2004. Alternatively, it can accept the reality that the guerrilla force is now self-sustaining and sufficiently large not to flicker out and face the fact that a U.S. conventional force of less than 150,000 is not likely to suppress the guerrillas. More to the point, it can recognize these facts: 1. The United States cannot re-engineer Iraq because the guerrillas will infiltrate every institution it creates. 2. That the United States by itself lacks the intelligence capabilities to fight an effective counterinsurgency. 3. That exposing U.S. forces to security responsibilities in this environment generates casualties without bringing the United States closer to the goal. 4. That the strain on the U.S. force is undermining its ability to react to opportunities and threats in the rest of the region. And that, therefore, this phase of the Iraq campaign must be halted as soon as possible.
This inspired James Wolcott (Captain Video's Visor Yield Poor Visibility 01/10/05) to write:
It's going to break [neoconservative publicist] Norman Podhoretz's peach-pit heart, but it will soon become time to recognize the inevitable and blow the whistle on the World War IV he and the neocons have been so determined to wage. At some point Dick Cheney will place a fatherly paw on Dubya's shoulder and say, "Earth to Captain Video: Time to bug out--I mean, withdraw in an orderly fashion." It's going to be hard breaking the news to the little fella.
According to Sullivan, Stratfor's exit strategy involves something like what was known as the "enclave" option in the Vietnam War: pull back American troops to the periphery of Iraq and let the factions in Iraq have their civil war.
I think realistically that a decision to pull out, whatever official propaganda label is put on it ("peace with honor", etc.), that there is scarcely another option left at this point. Desirable or not, the Bush administration has backed itself - and the US military - into a situation with few practical options for getting out. Very few, it now seems.
So this is a Notice to those who consider themselves "moderate" Republicans: it looks like you better start hedging your bets on Bush's war. You know, start practicing your, "I was always against the war" lines. (Alternative version: "I was initially for the war but I could see right away it was becoming a disaster.") Of course, there's always "I was wrong" or "I was had." But that's not likely to earn warm and cuddly feelings for you from other Republicans, since that will remind them how badly they got snookered on the WMD fraud.
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