{"id":9544,"date":"2007-01-08T09:00:20","date_gmt":"2007-01-08T14:00:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/9544.html"},"modified":"2007-01-08T09:00:20","modified_gmt":"2007-01-08T14:00:20","slug":"two-or-three-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/two-or-three-years\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Two or three years’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), one of only a handful of congressional cheerleaders for a troop escalation in Iraq, repeated most of the predictable talking points during his appearance on Meet the Press<\/a> yesterday, but Tim Russert, to his credit, asked the question I was anxious to hear: “If the surge doesn’t work, will Republicans senators then go to the president and say, ‘Enough’?”<\/p>\n

Graham immediately launched into complaints about Democrats and the very idea of a withdrawal, so Russert interrupted him. “Senator, my question was, if the surge does not work, will Republicans then say, ‘We tried everything. We gave it our last best hope. Mr. President, the war has been lost’?” Graham’s response<\/a> is worth remembering.<\/p>\n

Graham: I don’t think any Republican or Democrat should do anything right now to say the war is lost. We should try to win this war. And the day you say we’re going to withdraw — three months, six months, a year from now — the effect will be that the militants will be emboldened, the moderates will be frozen, and we will have sent the message to the wrong people. Who started this…<\/p>\n

Russert: So we’re stuck there forever.<\/p>\n

Graham: Well, you stay there with a purpose to win.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Recent news reports have characterized troop escalation as the final bet. The Hail Mary pass. The last-ditch hope to somehow pull this nightmare off. It’s a short-term gamble that the only thing standing between chaos and success is 20,000 troops and some reconstruction money. The question about what happens after this “new way forward” fails is rarely even asked — because the answer belies the sales pitch. If McCain’s new “surge” is as effective as the previous ones — which is to say, not at all — war supporters won’t give up; they’ll just call for another one.<\/p>\n

It’s exactly why it’s hardly a surprise to hear Bush’s new military leaders for Iraq talk openly about another “two or three years” of combat. (For those keeping score at home, that’s four to six Friedman Units<\/a>.)
\n
\nFrom today’s NYT<\/a>:<\/p>\n

The new American operational commander in Iraq said Sunday that even with the additional American troops likely to be deployed in Baghdad under President Bush’s new war strategy it might take another “two or three years” for American and Iraqi forces to gain the upper hand in the war.<\/p>\n

The commander, Lt. Gen. Raymond T. Odierno, assumed day-to-day control of war operations last month in the first step of a makeover of the American military hierarchy here. In his first lengthy meeting with reporters, General Odierno, 52, struck a cautious note about American prospects, saying much will depend on whether commanders can show enough progress to stem eroding support in the United States for the war.<\/p>\n

“I believe the American people, if they feel we are making progress, they will have the patience,” he said. But right now, he added, “I think the frustration is that they think we are not making progress.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Probably because we’re not. And if we’re still not making progress a year from now, it won’t matter. Nor two years, nor three. As Graham said, “You stay there with a purpose to win,” which presumably means, indefinitely, no matter the cost.<\/p>\n

The WaPo noted<\/a> yesterday that “senior military and administration officials privately admit their deep concerns that the troop increase will backfire — and leave the United States with no options left in six to eight months.” At which point the president will no doubt offer a stirring speech about sacrifice and patience, move the deck chairs around some more, and accuse anyone who disagrees of being weak and defeatist.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), one of only a handful of congressional cheerleaders for a troop escalation in Iraq, repeated most of the predictable talking points during his appearance on Meet the Press yesterday, but Tim Russert, to his credit, asked the question I was anxious to hear: “If the surge doesn’t work, will Republicans senators […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9544","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9544","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9544"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9544\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9544"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9544"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9544"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}