June 29, 2005

Resolved: Iraq is a mess.

If there’s anyone present who still believes there isn’t any comparison between this and Vietnam -- other than ( http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-bushiraq
26jun26,0,2068870,print.story ) Michael "there isn’t any comparison between this and Vietnam" Deaver, the former Reagan aide -- let him speak now, or forever lose eligibility for the Blindest of the Blind Hall of Fame.

History isn’t just repeating itself. It’s mocking us. Every bloody day we hear this glib administration cite the rosy progress of a perpetually grim situation, with its generals in tow, nodding in self-denying but sycophantic agreement.

Meanwhile we’re back to counterinsurgency improvisations, frontless battles, body counts, indigenous-personnel training, fuzzy justifications, budget-blasting, a seething public at home, world scorn, and just plain disgust with how we got there and why we can’t get out.

Resolved: Iraq is a mess and getting much messier.

The only comic relief is the vice president, what with his "last throes" silliness and all -- whom and which even the secretary of defense can’t flee fast enough.

Would Donald use those words? "I didn’t use them, and I might not use them," he said last week with typical Rumsfeldian clarity. The dang thing could "go on for four, eight, 10, 12, 15 years, whatever…. We don’t know." Odd. They used to.

Rumsfeld, of course, is a master of the diversionary downplay; the subtle insignificance; the casual "I’m not saying anything new here" tactic when dropping a political bombshell. An occupation of "12, 15 years, whatever" was not something even to be insinuated 18 months ago. Today he delivers the horrifying prospect with a yawn.

And now the revelation that he and his brassy sidekicks have been negotiating with Iraqi terrorists. When asked about reports that the U.S. military has twice met with mortar-toting, American-targeting Sunnis to cut a deal, Rumsfeld nonchalantly replied ( http://www.boston.com/news/world/middleeast/articles/2005/06
/27/us_confirms_direct_meetings_with_insurgent_leaders/ ... ) "there have probably been many more [meetings] than that." In other words: "There’s no news -- yawn -- in this explosive revelation -- yawn -- that we’re now talking turkey -- yawn -- with the guys killing our soldiers. Gee, I’m surprised you’re even interested."

Resolved: Iraq is a mess, getting messier, and about to implode.

Ultimately, others will take the fall for this failed war, one that from the get-go, as former national security advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski said, "has been conducted with tactical and strategic incompetence."

The jig is up -- so the right needs a chump. And when the U.S. presence is finally forced out there, because no one supports it here, guess who will get the blame.

You got it. Liberals.

Never mind what every pollster and politician, left and right, knows today: "What’s interesting in this decline in support for the war is that it has sprung from the public itself," said the Pew Research Center’s director. "It wasn’t led by politicians or by an antiwar movement."

You won’t hear that from the right in the war’s aftermath. What you’ll hear is that the left and its elected hacks began weakening America’s resolve. We had it won, the right will say, until the embedded Liberal Elite once again badmouthed America and sweet-talked the masses astray. What you’ll hear is that things were going swimmingly. Sure we had a bump here and there, but no real setbacks. You’ll hear that all was according to plan -- precisely what the president absurdly claimed last night.

We would have had the Middle East under wraps today, the right’s fantasy will continue -- a veritable heap of desert-flowering democracy, if it just hadn’t been for those liberals undermining our determination, abetting our enemies, disdaining our military might and upending our righteous cause.

Given the right’s well-oiled attack machine and well-justified reliance on Americans’ notoriously short memory to boot, today’s reality will get buried by tomorrow’s carefully fashioned historical myth: "Liberals cost America the war."

Just like Vietnam.