Colin Powell, no longer a member of the team, was the first to point out The Crockery Barn rule of international affairs: “You break it; you bought it.”
We just had to break that Iraqi crockery and now we can’t get out of the store without paying the bill. Iraq – really Humpty Dumpty – is now cracked and divided into three big pieces, Kurd, Shia, and Sunni, and we have no clue as to how to put it back together again. The president simply says we have to stay the course of holding the three pieces together. Liberals scream that we have to let go and let the pieces fall where they may. And new voices from the Democratic side and even some moderate Republicans are saying we’ve got to turn the cracked China over to the irate customers – all of whom are, at best, wary of each other.
It wasn’t as if George Bush wasn’t told by his own Secretary of State. Opponents of the war seized on Powell’s analogy as did even the diffident Democrats who supported the effort.
There appears to be no right answer. Simply staying the course plays into the hands of the insurgents and al Qaeda; they know that we have to go home someday, and they have the wherewithal to outwait us. Meeting the liberal demand by pulling out of the war immediately looks like a recipe for certain and immediate chaos and anarchy. The best answer – of a very poor lot - as the president hints and as moderates demand - staged withdrawal - appears to offer the only rational way out, but that could be merely postponing civil war.
George Bush broke the crockery. He’s trying hard to drag in everybody in sight saying they went shopping with him, but – sad for him – they all claim quite rightly that they were only looking in the window. It’s his war; he must admit error and find a way to get us out.
The Senate has taken and passed a vote of no confidence in George’s war. The people now see him as untrustworthy and by their poll numbers endorse the Senate’s view.
While the nature of the Congress has changed in the last couple of decades as the incumbents have learned to insulate themselves from recall by the people, the Republican moderates have got to take charge if George won’t. The ’06 election looms and threatens to spread the crockery shards all over the GOP loyalists.
George, just pay the bill. You broke; you own it. Start bringing the troops home now. It may not be a good way, but it’s the only way. Oh, and stop attacking people it only solidifies your spot in history as a failed president.
Blog on!
Wild Bill
