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Originally Posted by JohnR
Bush absolutely effed up. As did Rummy, Cheney, and Bremmer (tool).
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I've read several books on Iraq and they all seem to agree that Bremmer was a tool (never having met the man that's all I have to go by). Bush made the bed in which he slept. Rummy and Cheney had simply eaten so much of their own shyte they thought it was ice cream.
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Whether or not we should have been there (we shouldn't have but as Powell said, once you break the china you own it), once we were in and once he realized - very late - that we could win or lose he put his chips on win, rather than doing what the politically easiest thing to do was. While everyone else was crying run and not winnable (Reid, Biden, Pelosi, Hillary, and pretty much the entire Dem party - sans Lieberman) he doubled down on Petraeus, our military, strategy, LUCK, and sticking it out.
The surge worked, no doubt helped out by things that changed on the ground, but it worked. No timetable.
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But you can't deny that there was a legitimate argument against the Surge given past events. Certainly a lot of the opposition was political or just people simply tired with war...but opposition alone wasn't necessarily demonstrating a lack of will.
Personally I think many just weren't close enough to the situation on the ground to sense the opportunity as the General was. The results from the Surge appear to have been the result of timing, effort and luck. Had the situation changed slightly (i.e. Sunni resistance) I'd think it could have easily failed. I'm thankful that we had all three.
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Obama campaigned on making AFG the good and necessary fight but he stumbling over ways to get out. If different sources like Woodward's book is to be believed, the entire administration is a mess in its bickering approach to how to handle AFG other than that they want to get out ASAP and put a foolish timetable on it.
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Why wouldn't any President desperately seek a way out of the longest war in our countries history?
What the article seems to show is that after all the drama, Obama chose to do what the military was advocating rather than what would appease the democratic (and younger voters) base.
The "timetable" issue is a red herring though. One one hand it gives the edge to the enemy and on the other it motivates local forces to take up the slack. I call it a wash...
-spence