The Retreat of the Old Bulls

What was anticipated in September,
the retreat of the old bulls of the Republican Party
from the Bush war policy, happened in June. The
beginning of the end of U.S. involvement in the Iraq war
is at hand.

"I rise today," said

Sen. Richard Lugar of Indiana on Monday, "to
offer observations on the continuing involvement of the
United States in Iraq. . . . [O]ur course in Iraq has
lost contact with our vital interests in the Middle East
and beyond."

According to the six-term,
ex-chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, three
factors make it improbable the "surge"
can succeed—and imperative the United States redeploy
its troops, out of combat and perhaps out of Iraq:
political fragmentation in Iraq, the

growing strain on the U.S. military and the
crumbling support at home.

Lugar`s stance provides cover for
Republicans anxious to break and join the chorus for
early withdrawal. Beyond Sen. John McCain, a few
generals and some neoconservative commentators, no one
is calling for more U.S. troops. The handwriting is on
the wall.

"A course change should happen
now," said Lugar. But if his diagnosis seems on
target, his remedy lacks credulity.

The United States has four
strategic goals in Iraq, says Lugar. Prevent creation of
a safe haven for terrorists. Prevent sectarian war from
spilling out into the broader Middle East. Prevent
Iran`s domination of the region. Limit the loss of U.S.
credibility through the region and the world as a result
of a failed mission in Iraq.

Lugar`s recommended policy to
secure these goals: "[A] down-sizing and redeployment
of U.S. military forces to more sustainable positions in
Iraq and the Middle East."

Lugar is calling for what the

Iraq Study Group recommended, a shift of U.S. combat
brigades out of action and out of country, turning their
duties over to the Iraqis.

Most Americans may concur and cheer
Lugar. But what is hard to see is the connection between
the goals Lugar declares are vital, and the policy
course he proposes for securing them.

Those 150,000 U.S. troops are the
most effective, if not the only reliable, units
preventing all-out sectarian civil war and defending the
government, the contractors, the aid workers and the
Green Zone. If we draw them down, how secure will the
Americans left behind, and the friends of America, be in
Iraq? What is to prevent the enemy from launching Tet-style
offensives in U.S.-abandoned sectors? When Tet occurred
in

Vietnam in 1968, we had 500,000 U.S troops to deal
with it. It is really a time for truth.

After four years, 3,500 dead,
25,000 wounded and half a trillion dollars spent, the
four strategic goals of Sen. Lugar have not only not
been attained, they are receding. Removing U.S. troops
may only advance the day that all are lost.

If the U.S. forces, the most
effective in Iraq, have failed to eradicate the al Qaeda
nests in Anbar, how does he suppose the Shia-dominated
government and Iraqi army will succeed?

With the sectarian civil war near
its height when a U.S. surge is underway, how will
ending the surge and pulling out those troops cool,
rather than unleash, the passions for killing?

As for Iran`s domination of the
Gulf, fear of that was a major argument made against
going to war. If you smash the only Arab nation in the
Gulf able to stand up to Persian Iran, overthrow its
Sunni regime and introduce majority, i.e., Shia rule,
how can Iran not be the beneficiary?

This war was not thought through.
It was not only mismanaged, it was an historic strategic
blunder to begin with.

Any U.S. war to overthrow Iran`s
enemies—the Taliban in Kabul, Saddam and his Sunni
Baathists in Baghdad—cannot but result in making Iran
more dominant in the Gulf when the Americans depart. By
eliminating the counterweight to Iranian domination, we
guaranteed that either we become that counterweight, or
there is none.

As for preventing a loss of U.S.
credibility in the region and the world, it is a little
late for that. Bin Laden said Americans are weaker than
Russians. They will not take the casualties. Was he
wrong?

In his assessment of the Iraqi
government, the cracking U.S. Army and the dwindling
American will to sustain this war, Lugar is right. But
no energetic diplomacy is going to save for this country
what the best army in the world fighting four years
could not hold.

The self-deceptions must
end. When we draw down and pull out U.S. forces, the
odds will rise steadily that this war ends as did the

one in Southeast Asia—with our

friends slaughtered and our enemies triumphant. We
may all hope not, but hope is a virtue, not a policy.

COPYRIGHT

CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.

Patrick J. Buchanan needs


no introduction to VDARE.COM
readers; his book

State of Emergency: The Third World Invasion and
Conquest of America,

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