The Tipping Point

Today georgia10 posted a beautiful analysis of our situation in Iraq.

It drives home a point that simply can not be repeated too frequently -- we are at a cross roads, a tipping point in our efforts in the War.

Where we go from here will not only help determine the future of Iraq, it will determine the future of America.

While George Bush remains mired in his failed strategy to "Stay the Course", slowly sinking into Quicksand - Iraq shifts from a slow smolder to a raging inferno as increasing more militant Shia Clerics take control in the wake of the bombing of the Golden mosque.

Iraq's Defense Minister warns of an "endless civil war" and says he's ready to fill the streets with tanks. Meanwhile, Shi'ite and Sunni religious leaders took to the airwaves with an agreement to prohibit killings of members of each other's sects and to ban attacks on mosques and shrines.

What does George Commander-in-Chief Bush do while this is going on? Go to a fundraiser.

We have those nitwits on Faux News claiming that renewed violenced "proves Bush's strategy is working" and are seriously wondering if "All-Out Civil War in Iraq: Could It Be a Good Thing?"
These people are clearly addicted not just to oil, but apparently to mass chaos and death.

While some gung-ho chickenhawk conservatives are ready to run for the hills, Democrats actually have plan on the table. Democrats.org has the details for a Phased Redeployment.

From the Boston Globe:

Democratic Party leaders are beginning to coalesce around a broad plan to begin a quick withdrawal of US troops and install them elsewhere in the region, where they could respond to emergencies in Iraq and help fight terrorism in other countries.

The concept, dubbed "strategic redeployment," is outlined in a slim, nine-page report coauthored by a former Reagan administration assistant Defense secretary, Lawrence J. Korb, in the fall. It sets a goal of a phased troop withdrawal that would take nearly all US troops out of Iraq by the end of 2007...

Howard Dean, Democratic National Committee chairman, has endorsed Korb's paper and begun mentioning it in meetings with local Democratic groups. In addition, the study's concepts have been touted by the senator assigned to bring Democrats together on Iraq -- Jack Reed of Rhode Island -- and the report has been circulated among all senators by Senator Dianne Feinstein, an influential moderate Democrat from California.

This common sense plan puts Democratic ideas squarely at odds with the Republican three-year plan of crossing your fingers and hoping for the best, a nifty public relations plan for success, and asking people to serve their country by placing U.S. Senate campaign bumper stickers on the back of cars. The current course staked out by President Bush, which completely ignores reality and military commanders' advice on troop levels, is no longer an option. That's why the majority of Americans now feel the war was a mistake and disapprove of the way the president has handled the prosecution of the effort. And that's to say nothing of the majority who also believe the president deliberately misled the American people on WMDs and Iraq in the run-up to the war.

We need to change course, that much is clear -- but that doesn't mean we need to "cut and run". We need a different approach, to reduce our footprint and presense in the region -- stop becoming the crutch for the Iraqi forces and finally push them out of the nest to fly or fall on thier own, but remain close by -- at the ready if we are needed for a big operation. We need to bring in a larger international level to the effort, involving countries that aren't tainted by our own actions of bad faith in starting and persuing this war under false pretenses.

Up to this point we've been the catalyst for Sunni insurgent to attacks against Shias, stemming from their nearly complete and total disenfranchisement from the political process. We have to do something different, because doing what we've been doing -- with the massive incompetence and malfeasance that has become all to familiar in the wake of Katrina -- simply isn't working.

We certainly could't make things any worse than they already are.

Bush will no doubt ignore this push by Democrats, but his further resistance to common sense and logic can and will be another lever to help sweep Republicans out of office this November. Many Repubs already see the writing on the wall, but the President is far too blind. We absolutely need to hammer this meme home - it's time to change course.

If the President and his Republican enablers won't do it - Democrats will.

Vyan