RE: This Is Realism?

Bless your little neocon heart, Charles...

...consigning the Bush doctrine to the ash heap of history...

Hope springs eternal. That's where it belongs, right next to Woodrow Wilson's globalist ambitions.

True, the president's rhetoric has a tendency to go soaringly Wilsonian...

Tendency, Charles? The Bush foreign policy (and yours, by the way) is a textbook exercise in neo-Wilsonianism.

We are instead trying to sustain fragile democracies in three strategically important countries -- Afghanistan, Iraq and Lebanon -- that form the geographic parentheses around the principal threat to Western interests in the region, the Syria-Iran axis.

That is such utter crap, Charles. First, if the Iran-Syria axis presents such a threat, why not attack them directly? This is the same obfuscation you guys used when the Iraq invasion was imminent. North Korea presented a much higher strategic and tactical threat to our "interests" than did Iraq, yet somehow diplomacy was the word of the day in that situation, while you guys whined that we had "no choice" but to invade and occupy Iraq. And furthermore, you guys seem long on vague hints at what constitutes a threat to our interests, but you're never very specific about what the threat is or even what our interests are.

We are trying to bring democracy to Iraq in particular because a pro-Western government enjoying legitimacy and popular support would have been the most enduring means of securing our interests there.

More crap, Charles. An enduring democracy in the heart of Persian Islam is a pipe dream. And even were it not, the best you could hope for is a staging area for our military. But that's really what it's all about, isn't it, Charles? The Turks have never been very cooperative in that regard. What better way to have a forward logistics post than an occupied Iraq?

But their successor -- the popularly elected Maliki government -- has failed.

See above in reference to pipe dreams. The prosecution rests, your honor.

The cause of that failure is rooted in an Iraqi political culture that makes it as yet impossible for enough of the political leadership to act with a sense of national consciousness.

Spin, spin, spin. What you're saying, Charles, is that a stable democracy in the middle of Persian Islam is completely counter to over 1500 years of culture and society.

We should nonetheless make a last effort to change the composition of the government and assemble a new one composed of those -- Kurds, moderate Sunnis, secular Shiites and some of the religious Shiites -- who might be capable of reaching a grand political settlement.

Let's just keep putting lipstick on that pig, eh, Charles? She's bound to look attractive if we just keep at it. I wonder if you are aware of the definition of insanity, Charles.

It's been clear for at least a year that a military solution to the insurgency was out of our reach.

No, Charles, it has been clear to most of the rest of us for much longer than that. It was clear to us before Bush invaded Iraq that it was a losing proposition. It's the old tale of the dog that finally catches the car he's been chasing. Now what does he do with it?

The US hasn't had the will to fight a war in over 50 years. We've become the fat bully who knocks the littler kids down but then starts whining when the kid's friends show up and start defending him. We fight with the bizarre mindset that hurling bombs and knocking things over and killing people is a preamble to a giant Habitat for Humanity project. The reason a military victory over the insurgency was always out of reach is that we never had the will to do what is necessary to achieve it.

...the U.S. will abandon the Green Zone, retire to its bases, move much of its personnel to Kurdistan where we are welcome and safe, and let the civil war take its course.

I have a better idea, Charles. Let's tell Maliki, "Time's up, see you later." You seem to want us to continue making the same mistakes over and over again. It's not much of a democracy when the empire is dictating terms, is it, Charles?

In fact, Iran and Syria have an overriding interest in chaos in Iraq -- which is precisely why they each have been abetting the insurgency and fanning civil war.

Then it would appear that they are a lot smarter than we are, Charles. Even granting that deposing Saddam was a good idea (which it may or may not have been), a chaotic Persia was always in our best interests until we went stupid and put boots on the ground. But Bush, who is a simpleton at best, took the advice of you and your fellow neocons, Charles, and dragged our butts into the very situation we should have been seeking to avoid. Nicely done, guys. If we can't do any better than this, maybe we deserve to get our butts kicked.

Sigh...

So many idiots, so little time to identify them all.

This bears repeating:

But she goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy.

She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all.

She is the champion and vindicator only of her own.

She will commend the general cause by the countenance of her voice, and the benignant sympathy of her example.

She well knows that by once enlisting under other banners than her own, were they even the banners of foreign independence, she would involve herself beyond the power of extrication, in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of individual avarice, envy, and ambition, which assume the colors and usurp the standard of freedom.

The fundamental maxims of her policy would insensibly change from liberty to force....

She might become the dictatress of the world. She would be no longer the ruler of her own spirit....

[America's] glory is not dominion, but liberty. Her march is the march of the mind. She has a spear and a shield: but the motto upon her shield is, Freedom, Independence, Peace. This has been her Declaration: this has been, as far as her necessary intercourse with the rest of mankind would permit, her practice.

John Quincy Adams