NYT editorial, "No Exit Strategy": "everything, but his own illusions, tells him he is failing"

[DeepModem Mom]

No Exit Strategy
Published: July 25, 2007

The American people have only one question left about Iraq: What is President Bush’s plan for a timely and responsible exit? That is the essential precondition for salvaging broader American interests in the Middle East and for waging a more effective fight against Al Qaeda in its base areas in Pakistan and Afghanistan. And it is exactly the question that Mr. Bush, his top generals and his diplomats so stubbornly and damagingly refuse to answer.

Yesterday provided two more frustrating and shameful examples of this denial. One was a new war plan drawn up by America’s top military commander and top diplomat in Baghdad that will keep American troops fighting in Iraq at least until 2009. The other was yet one more speech by President Bush that claimed that Iraq was the do-or-die front in the war on terrorism — rather than a rallying point for extremists and a never-ending drain on the resources America needs to fight that fight....

So much for Mr. Bush’s soothing incantations about a relatively short-term “surge” of additional troops....

***

General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker may feel they have little choice but to project the administration’s flawed policies to their logical, or illogical, conclusions. Mr. Bush does have a choice and a clear obligation to re-evaluate strategy when everything, but his own illusions, tells him that it is failing. Instead, he spoke yesterday as if the latest National Intelligence Estimate had not found Al Qaeda’s top leadership regrouped and resurgent in its old strongholds along the Pakistani-Afghan frontier. Or as if the latest bleak assessment of the Iraqi government’s political and economic failures had never been issued.

Mr. Bush proposed no realistic new plan for more effectively fighting Al Qaeda in its heartland or for exiting from the tragic misadventure in Iraq. Instead he offered the familiar, simplistic and misleading arguments that he used to drag the country into this disastrous war to start.

Prolonging the war for another two years will not bring victory. It will mean more lives lost, more damage to America’s international standing and fewer resources to fight the real fight against terrorists. If Mr. Bush’s advisers can’t tell him that, Congress will have to — with a veto-proof majority.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/25/opinion/25weds1.html?hp

[AndyTiedye]

1. No Exit Strategy Because Bush** Never Intends to Leave Iraq

The "surge" was really intended as a permanent escalation. Bush** was lying to us again when he said otherwise.
It will be followed by a another "surge" and another and another, as he tries to "surge" into Iran and Syria.

He is still following the PNAC playbook to try to conquer the whole area.

[acmavm]

2. Hey, you clowns at the NYT had a lot to do with putting us where

we are today.

I would say better late than never but I'm afraid I'm rather unforgiving when it comes to the aid and comfort the provided this administration during TWO STOLEN ELECTIONS.

[grasswire]

3. two words

Judith Miller