Cato Institute on Petraeus

http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=8706

 

Most lbtns (including myself and CATO) believe there is little chance a soveriegn nation will ever attack the U.S. Consider: dictators are fundamentally selfish people and are essentially cowards. They would rather hold on to what they can achieve then die for principle. Saddam did not attack us not because he wouldn't have enjoyed it but because he didn't have a vested interest in being obliterated by the world's technologcial superpower. In fact, the US hasn't been attacked by a sovereign power since Japan. (Discounting isolated, indirect attacks via "support".) It seems plausible that most dictators will opt for safety and continuity rather than pick a fight with their equal, or worse, greater. All of this is confirmed in China. China is just as antagonistic ideologically as religious fascists but you wouldn't easily remember it by the rhetoric circulating. Communism is no more western friendly than Islam yet the nation containing both nukes and the world's largest standing army doesn't pose a pragmatic threat. The ChiComms aren't interested in a "fair" fight any more than Iran will be, thus proving that even an ideolgical nuclear opponent can be a managable threat. Case in point: we don't speak Chinese. Also, keep in mind that the men who actually did attack us on 9/11 were political vagabonds. Bin Laden was in no man's land after suffering a falling out with his own country as is currently happening to Al-Qaeda. Terrorists may not mind living in caves, but most dicators will find it less than foppish.

 

The foreign policy gap between lbtns and pubs is narrowing considerably. Wallstreet Journal editorialist and former Reagan speechwriter, Peggy Noonan wrote last Friday:

"An unspoken part of the larger story is that Gen. Petraeus backed up the argument that our troops have been stretched painfully thin, and the postsurge presence cannot, practically, be maintained. Thus a seeming illogic in the general's presentation: For the first time in years we're making progress, therefore we should reduce troop levels to the same point at which we made no progress. "

(The entire text found here http://www.opinionjournal.com/columnists/pnoonan/?id=110010599)

While Noonan, like the Journal, doesn't support a full blown withdrawal, it seems she is joining an ever broader group of war skeptics pondering the realism of a Muslim Democracy.

 

Yes, the surge worked. No one argues that holding a gun to someone's head 24/7 cannot alter behavior. The point is, and this was Noonan's point (a supporter of the war and well established Republican), that we are now ending the surge.

So, if 1) The surge worked and 2) we're ending the surge then 3) the future looks bleak.

 

I suspect that being a conservative, 2 Timothy 2:1-4, that you and I agree that the Iraqi's have to start helping themselves at some point. And that point is likely to be now or never. Our military doesn't exist to perform humanitarian missions for needy peoples. Nor can it do so forever regardless of any temporary success stories.

 

I don't think pulling out will make everything okay. I think it will make American soldiers safer with little to no security loss. Iraq has never and will never be okay. Such is the destructive force that is Islam.

 

Excellent point about parliament vacationing at our expense, btw. I'm afrad at this point though the Iraqi's know they have the current powers that be caught in a potential political catastrophe and subsequently cannot be pressured.

 

More from Cato on Petraeus:

http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/2007/08/15/who-will-author-the-petraeus-report/

(This one is a scorcher!)