Thursday, January 11, 2007

Good Times for Bush's Iraq Shift

Our SWNIDish response to President Bush's speech last night is to recommend today's editorial from the Times of London (motto: "We were the Times before there was a New York"). The piece is sober, broadly informed, realistic, and eschews the journalistic bandwagon.

In sum, it notes that there is no reasonable alternative to the general direction that Bush is taking.

Urging the reading of the whole piece, we tantalize with a quotation:
In reality, there is no credible alternative. The Iraq Study Group proved rather better at setting out the many problems that exist in Iraq than in offering precise solutions. Its recommendation that the White House co-opt Iran and Syria as its allies in Iraq does not look remotely plausible. The idea that suddenly withdrawing American soldiers from the country would convince Shia and Sunni hardliners to be more charitable to one another is equally improbable. Mr Bush’s domestic foes, notably Nancy Pelosi, the new Democratic Speaker of the House of Representatives (who has a minimal record in foreign policy) and the increasingly surreal Edward Kennedy, would simply abandon Iraq and be done with it.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I also found Polipundit's analysis quite insightful. I would check out his Post-Speech Commentary from last night titled "A surge, Not "The Surge" and yesterday's Pre-Speech Prediction "Handicapper" Sheet for Tonight's Plan".

Both of these posts have value. You can go www.polipundit.com to check out both of these posts.

Just adding to the resources you have mentioned this morning.

Dustin said...

I do have one question: Won't the troop levels, after the "surge," simply rest at the levels they were about a year ago? And if this is so, how do we believe this will effectively change the way things are going, or were going then? Just curious questions from a perpetual cynic.

Anonymous said...

Dustin,

You have way too much common sense to be posting on this blog.