How the escalation in Iraq is both a campaign move and a way to force Sunnis out of Baghdad and into second-class status.
By Tom Hayden
"Politically, the coming escalation by 20,000 U.S. troops in Iraq is best understood as the comeback strategy of the neoconservative Republicans rallying around Sen. John McCain's presidential banner.
The political spin-doctors are calling it a "surge," an aggressive term implying a kind of post-election erection for Bush and the neoconservatives. In fact, or course, it is an escalation, a term apparently carrying too much baggage from Vietnam.
The hardcore neoconservatives, their ranks thinned by defections publicized in Vanity Fair, leaped immediately to salvage the war from November's voter disapproval. Frederick Kagan of the American Enterprise Institute and William Kristol of the Weekly Standard began promoting an increase of 50,000 troops, mainly to Baghdad. Bush, who all along said he was listening to his generals, now sacked generals Casey and Abizaid, who had plans to reduce troop levels over one year ago, and who now opposed more American soldiers in Iraqi neighborhoods. John Negroponte, a specialist in the black arts of counterintelligence, became the State Department's point man on Baghdad. U.S. ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, a Sunni who has been critical of the Shi'a-controlled interior ministry, was removed from his Baghdad post. An Ivy League general, David Petraeus, with a counterinsurgency agenda to prove, took over command of U.S. troops.
Right after the election, Sen. McCain was touring Baghdad with his potential running mate Sen. Joe Lieberman, promoting the plan to escalate, although supported by only 20 percent of Republicans, 11 percent of independent voters, and a statistically-insignificant 4 percent of Democrats (L.A. Times/Bloomberg, Dec. 11, 2006).
It is a brilliant strategy -- for a faction dealt a losing hand....."
Continue
No comments:
Post a Comment