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When will this era end?
By Jaime Wright | August 15, 2007
With the recent resignation of Karl Rove who is arguably an important symbol of the Bush presidency, one could only hope that it may signal the end of an era. But this is not true entirely. Even when Donald Rumsfeld retired, the ugliest and biggest failure of the Bush presidency was still with us: the Iraq War.
As we see with the latest catastrophe in Iraq (bombing killing upwards of 200), the war rages on regardless of the efforts of the U.S. military and its competent and seemingly respected heads such as Gen. Patraeus and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates.
Eventually, even when Bush is no longer President this era will continue. Anyone who thinks the U.S. will entirely pull out of Iraq is naive. Anyone who thinks we should pull out every last U.S. soldier is also likely to be a person who can put their head in the sand … and is perhaps more U.S.-centric than the Left accuses the Right of being.
Although, I have gone through stages of ambivalence about entering the Iraq debacle to my current disgust with it and its architects, I am now skeptical about the prospects of complete and total withdraw. And so it is that I am most likely part of the problem. However, the Democratic frontrunners for President (one of whom will most likely take the White House) do not support a full and total withdraw.
Supporting a full-out withdraw of every last U.S. military person equals the support of possible genocide and a definite blood bath. Not to mention, with all of the hot rhetoric toward Iran (and Iran’s will to power), we would only be opening the door for Iran to walk in and take control of the region–not the Iraqis taking control of Iraq. If the rumors are true about Iran’s heavy material support of Shia militias, we are already fighting a Cold War style proxy war in Iraq–which I do not believe was the original intention and which also points (again) to the arrogance and the lack of competent analysis (i.e., sound science) of the Bush Administration.
This era will not end for some time to come. We can only do our due diligence to vote in competent politicians (a bit of an oxymoron) who may make more sober and well-thought out decisions to move ahead. And people who diverge from the typical Left vs. Right “answers” to the question of Iraq need to make their voices heard. We do not live a black and white world. Unfortunately, there are no real demons–just demonizing ideologies that we should struggle against.
Topics: Middle East, current events, politics |
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