By Jim Spencer
SpencerSpeaks.com
July 13, 2007
Date certain.
It’s a legal term. It means something has to happen by a certain date.
The concept bedevils the United States in the Iraq War. Americans want the war over. At the same time, they also want it won. A four-hour debate in the U.S. House of Representatives Thursday proved how hard it may be to reach either conclusion. The House approved a bill that requires the U.S. military to largely withdraw and redeploy from Iraq by April 1, 2008.
Date certain.
The law also requires the president to justify the “minimum force level†he leaves behind after April 1.
You wonder about the wisdom of making April Fools Day the date certain in Iraq. Or maybe it is the ultimate irony for the idiots who forced this country to attack another nation without proof that the invasion was a pre-emptive strike.
That would seem to be the standard for a unilateral, unprovoked attack. Iraq didn’t come close to reaching it. Nor does any outcome in Iraq rise to a declaration of victory.
As Colorado Rep. Ed Perlmutter told me shortly before he voted to pull out the troops: “Whatever the mission was, it has not been accomplished.â€
Nor can it be.
The trouble for those who oppose a deadline for withdrawal is that no amount of time will render Iraqis the cheering champions of democracy this country was promised when George W. Bush took us to war.
Perlmutter laid that out pretty clearly, too.
“There’s been no success on the economic front,†he said. “No success on the legislative front. No deal on the oil fields or partitioning the country among Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds. We’re trying to referee a religious civil war.â€
And failing.
That “F†word is as obscene to many Americans as profanity. But failure is what now defines Iraq. The Iraqi government met none of 18 benchmarks for progress set in war-funding legislation passed earlier this year and made progress on only 8. Find me a class where 0 percent qualifies as a passing grade.
People opposed to the date certain bill that passed the House talked about “declaring defeat.†Thing was, they never offered a definition of victory.
Artificial deadlines are not unheard of in American military engagements, said Robert Schulzinger, a professor of history and international affairs at the University of Colorado at Boulder.
“During Vietnam,†Schulzinger said, “a law passed to require withdrawal of troops from Cambodia by a certain date.â€
If you’re out there saying, “Yeah, and look what a fiasco Vietnam turned into,†consider what would have happened if we had stayed in Southeast Asia for another decade. We lost 58,000 soldiers as it was.
The president has already vetoed one Iraq bill with specific troop withdrawal deadlines. He has pledged to veto them all. For now, Congress lacks the votes to override Bush’s vetoes.
The voters can. As the stubbornness of the White House continues, so does the death in Iraq. The question inevitably arises: What are Americans and Iraqis dying for?
At last week’s Aspen Ideas Festival, you got the yin and yang in bold terms.
White House political director Karl Rove humped the company line that if we don’t fight terrorists in the streets of Iraq, we’ll have to fight them in the streets of America.
“If we’re going to fight ‘em there, not here,†said Colorado Rep. Mark Udall. “Let’s fight the right them and the right there.â€
That would be in Afghanistan and Pakistan fighting the Taliban, the congressman said, not Iraq. Though he voted against the Iraq War at the beginning, Udall has never been a big backer of deadlines. Still, he voted for the April 1 deadline as the best way to force change on an intransigent administration.
Colorado Rep. Diana DeGette voted for the bill to stop what she sees as a self-destructive drift in foreign policy.
“For most Americans and Iraqis,†DeGette said, “it’s past time to talk about whether we’ve suffered a defeat. We now need to talk about how to get our troops out.â€
Former Secretary of State Colin Powell told the Aspen Ideas Festival that regardless of when the Americans pull out, a civil war in which majority Shiites prevail over minority Sunnis and Kurds will happen.
“It’s going to be very public,†said Powell, a retired four-star general. “It’s not going to be very pretty to watch. But I don’t see any way to avoid it.â€
Not if we stay. Not if we leave.
So much for “declaring defeat.â€
What follows an American withdrawal from Iraq may be a regional war, said CU’s Schulzinger. But continuing to fight in Iraq does not make us safer. It merely makes us more frustrated with our leaders.
So the president can veto all the troop withdrawal bills he wants. What he can’t do at this point is convince the public that the war must be fought.
History, explained Schulzinger, shows just how long Americans will tolerate any war. It is, he said, a maximum of four years.
We passed that benchmark in Iraq in March.
Date certain.
Copyright 2007 by Jim Spencer. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
6 users commented in " The Only Thing Certain About Iraq is Uncertainty "
Follow-up comment rss or Leave a TrackbackColin Powell knows what is going to happen. He knew going in that there was no justification for the invasion and worked to get the President to avoid the war. When he failed to convince the president, he failed to retain his integrity by quietly acceding to the President’s obviously misguided invasion. Not only did General Powell acquiesce, he aided and abetted the effort. The high level of credibility he earned through long years of hard and honorable service to this nation was wiped out by his failure to resign when it was clear that muddle headed, slap-on-the-six-guns Bush decided to go to war.
Glad your writing is available.
Jimbo: Congrats on this first step of re-invention and and getting your voice out, which I know well. Iron sharpens iron in these debates, and I’m going to supply some iron against yours right now. Everyone you quote has the get-out-itis that so strongly resembles the get-in-itis of the first quarter of 2003. Bush, Cheney and the gang in power and rightfully taking the hit for the present mess. But I must tell you, there are more Iraqs where this one came from. An endless bloody domino phase where, if you pull back the blindfolds, you realize the war won’t end when Date Certain arrives, by any means. No more than it ended when the nearly 300 Marines died in Lebanon when you and I were working in Virginia. One of those martyred Marines had been a guest in my house before this deployment. The streets of Virginia Beach and Norfolk have never been strangers to death and terror. The War never came there, but only virtually when honorable men died on the U.S.S Nimitiz after trying to free the hostages in Iran. This may surprise some of you who know me, but I believe we’ve been at war since the hostages were taken during the Carter administration. The other battles included the terrorism of ships in the Middle East, blood on the streets ofSomalia, etc. The big one, of course, was 9-11-2001. We can retreat from the Iraq battle anytime. But before we do, we better make a thorough investigation about how much blood will be shed on the Date Certain when we must go back in. That’s because the Middle East is a cauldron of trouble from now until Armagedon. The fire that heats it burns oil and greed and the spiritual genocide that comes from bully gods in bully religions. We Americans have our faults, more numerous to name. But we don’t long suffer oppression from bullies of any stripe. We don’t let our women be leashed. We don’t shout down even those who would kill us in our own midst. We are about freedom. We may be one of the only candles left and breezes blowing to snuff it out are stronger each day. News flash: Freedom is a religion. It’s the only one worth fighting for and dying for. I know another Marine, this one a nephew. His name is Benjamin Murphy. He’s an adopted Korean. His black hair and olive skin and Irish name are over there in that hell right now. He does his job. But I know he must be confused by the workings of his government. The Marine Corps told him he’s fighting for freedom. He bought in. The world says no, it’s a war for oil and bragging rights or some other foolishness. But there’s been no oil, there’s been no bragging, and there’s been way too much foolishess. But there has bee planted seeds of freedom in a weed patch of hell where no one said freedom could germinate and survive and thrive. Has if been worth it? The 3,000 dead of 9-11, the 4,000 dead in this latest battle of the last war that leads to Armagedon? I don’t think anybody in Washington or North America is qualified to say. So, go ahead and pick your Date Certain. But leave the car running, the bullets at ready and the planes and aircraft carriers fueled. The bad guys want freedom dead, and run out of town, and embarrassed and confused. They will stop at nothing. We seem to want to stop whenever fear and uncertainty overtake our resolve. Bob Ehlert Jim Spencer’s friend. Iron sharpens Iron
Thanks to Bob Ehlert for calling me out. This is the kind of discussion I hope to have for every column. Read and react. You da man, Knuck. Even if you’re wrong about America’s ability to nation-build in Baghdad.
My comment to “Knucklehead”, by the way what an apt name…. It certainly fits. You refer to the “seeds of freedom” we have planted in Iraq. Huh?? I’m sure the common Iraqi people would beg to differ with you. They can’t even go to the marketplace without risk of getting blown up from at least 4 factions. You forgot to mention the hundreds of thousands of Iraqis who have been killed. We entered this war on false pretenses and we have needlessly sacrificed our soldiers and we owe it to them and their families to bring them home safely, now. You mention Armageddon, are you then of the same mind set as the president that he is sent from God to deliver us from evil? I don’t think we are safer now, every Arab in the world hates us because of this war. Wonder what this latest word is from Chernoff, of Homeland Security and Katrina fame, he “has a feeling” we are going to be attacked by next year. Is it another scare tactic like before the last elections? I sure wouldn’t want to depend on him, he couldn’t get water and food a few miles down the road to the people who deperately needed it..
1. Victory in Iraq? Why would we want to be victorious in this oil-grabbing escapade that has turned out to be deceptive, deadly and dishonorable? We could call it successful only if its point was to destabilize the Middle East. We should be grateful for withdrawal, not “victory,” whatever that would be. 2. By what twisted logic does Karl Rove think that (a) Al Qaeda is like a puppy to follow us home? or (b) diverting our military forces to Iraq makes the continental U.S. safer? Besides, isn’t the concept of ‘fighting them there instead of here’ basically dishonorable, too, making the Iraqi people suffer for our sake? 3. Other possible outcome from our WD: The Sunni, in return for a deal with the Shia, kick AQ out of Iraq. It’s already starting to do so.
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