Is Everyone Stealing From B-? (The Surge)

Frank Rich in today's New York Times


"The first was a confirmation of recent White House hints that the long-promised September pivot point for judging the success of the "surge" was inoperative. That deadline had been asserted as recently as April 24 by President Bush, who told Charlie Rose that September was when we'd have "a pretty good feel" whether his policy "made sense." On Sunday General Petraeus and Mr. Crocker each downgraded September to merely a "snapshot" of progress in Iraq. "Snapshot," of course, means "Never mind!"

B After The Fact, letter to The Weekly Standard
February 4, 2007

"If this surge fails, and since it is not even a half-measure, it likely will fail, the President and the Vice President will have no choice except to ask for another surge. And another one. And your position will be increasingly lonely. Because all your friends, the folks at the New York Post, the folks at the Corner, Senator Lieberman, Secretary Gates, General Petraeus, all your friends, keep referring to this surge as "one last chance". They keep talking about requiring the Iraqi government to work with us. They keep saying that our stay in Iraq is not forever.

"Better stop flogging your natural allies. Better stop treating the 50% of the voters who are Democrats as if they belong to another, unpatriotic nation. Better start laying the groundwork for the fact that United States actions in this region should not be dependent upon the actions of any Iraqi government; better start laying the groundwork for the 20, 30, 40, 80 more years of "one last chances" that American Presidents (or whatever Dick Cheney thinks of himself as) are going to need to make this right."