The Last Thing They Will Ever Admit About Iraq [View All]

[Plaid Adder]

No, it is not the fact that Iraq is engaged in a full-blown sectarian civil war. This will eventually become so clear to everyone who's not George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, or Tony Snow that even they will stop denying it. But even after they've admitted that, there is one thing that they will refuse to admit until long after they leave office, and it is this:

We do not control the outcome.

For me that has always been the most obvious pragmatic reason for pulling the U.S. army out of Iraq. The assumption underlying all this crap about "cutting and running" and "staying the course" and "quitting" is that by remaining in Iraq we will eventually be able to effect some sort of positive resolution. Positive from a U.S. point of view, that is. Well, it was clear to many of us a couple years ago, and it's really fucking obvious now:

We do not control the outcome.

There is a war going on there now to which our troops are relevant only as targets, recruiting tools, and occasions for the whipping up of hatred against the 'official' Iraqi government. It is a war that nobody in our government understands, fought for reasons that our government refuses to acknowledge, led by people our government wouldn't negotiate with even if they could track them down. We created the conditions that made this war possible by invading the country and removing from power the repressive regime that had prevented the Shiias from causing any trouble for the Sunnis--and then standing around wondering where the flowers were while the country was looted and every guy in Baghdad who had ever fancied himself a ruler started recruiting and arming his personal militia. We broke it, for sure. But we cannot fix it, because

We do not control the outcome.

And it is not just the Bush faction that refuses to admit this. It is going to be a hard sell to the American people too, because nobody wants to admit that our military could possibly be this impotent. But for this to be over--for our troops; it will be generations before this is over for the Iraqis--that is what we have to get people to understand. No matter how brave our individual soldiers are, they are in a situation that long ago passed beyond their collective control.

The war will go on with or without them. The bloodshed will go on with or without them. They cannot stop the violence; so the least we can do is get them out of it. That way, at least we'll know we're not making it worse--which at this point is about all we can hope for.

:argh:

The Plaid Adder