The bridge of Kerry's Iraq straddle collapses
According to the Washington Times (via Right on Red), John Kerry has finally conceded that the pipedream holding his incoherent Iraq proposal together is...well, a pipedream.
"Democratic presidential nominee Senator John Kerry conceded yesterday that he probably will not be able to convince France and Germany to contribute troops to Iraq if he is elected president.
"The Massachusetts senator has made broadening the coalition trying to stabilize Iraq a centerpiece of his campaign, but at a town hall meeting yesterday, he said he knows other countries won't trade their soldiers' lives for those of U.S. troops. 'Does that mean allies are going to trade their young for our young in body bags? I know they are not. I know that,' he said."
Well. It would have been nice if he hadn't bothered insulting the nation's collective intelligence all freaking year with this "real alliance-building" hocus-pocus. Which leaves several questions. First, what's left of Kerry's Iraq alternative? Without his thousands and thousands of phantom Franco-German warriors taking Iraq off of our hands, the only way to see the mission through is to do it ourselves. Which means if he starts pulling out American forces as he has been promising, Iraq will be abandoned to the Iranians and Syrians.
In short, Kerry has lost his political cover on the central issue of this campaign. He either stays with the Howie Dean crowd or he apes what Bush is already doing. Neither is a winning option for him.
This leads to the next question: will he be willing to make that choice? Everything about the man's personality suggests not. So, question #3: what other cover could he possibly come up with at this late date in the campaign?
John Edwards floated a possible answer Tuesday night:
"We have a plan for success. And that plan includes speeding up the training of the military. We have less than half of the staff that we need there to complete that training.
"Second, make sure that the reconstruction is sped up in a way that the Iraqis see some tangible benefit for what’s happening.
"And by the way, if we need to, we can take Iraqis out of Iraq to train them. It is not secure enough. It’s so dangerous on the ground that they can’t be trained there. We can take them out of Iraq for purposes of training.
"We should do whatever has to be done to train the Iraqis and to speed up that process.
That works in conjunction with making sure the elections take place on time."
Sooooo....Kerry'll do what Bush is already doing, only faster? How much faster can training be done? If Iraq is as dangerous as Edwards insists, how will taking Iraqi security forces out of Iraq help the security situation or get them trained faster? To where, for that matter, would he relocate them? Won't that increase the burden on our own forces, which is precisely what Kerry has been complaining about? And aren't Iraqi forces getting outstanding on-the-job training fighting the terrorists alongside our own troops? Seems to me the residents of Samarra have seen quite a bit of "tangible benefit" this week.
If this is the best practical "solution" they can come up with, they're screwed. Which may be why Kerry suggested that - are you ready for this? - there are other unnamed countries who would be willing and able to muster sufficient forces to replace our troops:
"Other countries are obviously more willing to accept responsibilities,' he added, as he took questions from reporters in a school yard in Tipton, Iowa."
So we're back to the diplomatic magic 8-ball angle. Only this time it really is a mystery, because whereas before everybody knew he meant France and Germany, now nobody knows what the hell powers he's talking about. Russia? Red China? North Korea? Syria? Iran? How about the Israelis? The IDF doesn't have much to do these days....
What I can't figure out is why Kerry's pulling the plug now. Sure, Chirac and Schroeder have declared unequivocally that they'd take turns cleaning out George Bush's horse stalls with a salad fork before they'll send troops to Iraq, but that was always day-glo obvious - to everybody but Mr. French, I suppose. So why not continue the bluff? Why ride it like a one-legged pack mule all year and then drop it in the home stretch? Concern that voters won't take him seriously on foreign policy and national security?
I think the jig is up. All year, John Kerry has not had a coherent policy on Iraq. Then he traded in that incoherent policy for an irresponsible, unserious one. And now he's left with no Iraq policy at all, as evidenced by his return to grasping at whatever comes up in the news cycle to take shots at the President - in this case, Paul Bremer's comments on troop levels that Big Media, naturally, twisted into a ready-made Kerry soundbite.
And the best part is, he's all but thrown in the towel on the issue that he made the vehicle that would carry him to victory.
I don't know what else Lurch can say about Iraq between now and November 2nd. But we do know this: it won't matter, and nobody will be able to make heads or tails of it.
Not even he.
"Democratic presidential nominee Senator John Kerry conceded yesterday that he probably will not be able to convince France and Germany to contribute troops to Iraq if he is elected president.
"The Massachusetts senator has made broadening the coalition trying to stabilize Iraq a centerpiece of his campaign, but at a town hall meeting yesterday, he said he knows other countries won't trade their soldiers' lives for those of U.S. troops. 'Does that mean allies are going to trade their young for our young in body bags? I know they are not. I know that,' he said."
Well. It would have been nice if he hadn't bothered insulting the nation's collective intelligence all freaking year with this "real alliance-building" hocus-pocus. Which leaves several questions. First, what's left of Kerry's Iraq alternative? Without his thousands and thousands of phantom Franco-German warriors taking Iraq off of our hands, the only way to see the mission through is to do it ourselves. Which means if he starts pulling out American forces as he has been promising, Iraq will be abandoned to the Iranians and Syrians.
In short, Kerry has lost his political cover on the central issue of this campaign. He either stays with the Howie Dean crowd or he apes what Bush is already doing. Neither is a winning option for him.
This leads to the next question: will he be willing to make that choice? Everything about the man's personality suggests not. So, question #3: what other cover could he possibly come up with at this late date in the campaign?
John Edwards floated a possible answer Tuesday night:
"We have a plan for success. And that plan includes speeding up the training of the military. We have less than half of the staff that we need there to complete that training.
"Second, make sure that the reconstruction is sped up in a way that the Iraqis see some tangible benefit for what’s happening.
"And by the way, if we need to, we can take Iraqis out of Iraq to train them. It is not secure enough. It’s so dangerous on the ground that they can’t be trained there. We can take them out of Iraq for purposes of training.
"We should do whatever has to be done to train the Iraqis and to speed up that process.
That works in conjunction with making sure the elections take place on time."
Sooooo....Kerry'll do what Bush is already doing, only faster? How much faster can training be done? If Iraq is as dangerous as Edwards insists, how will taking Iraqi security forces out of Iraq help the security situation or get them trained faster? To where, for that matter, would he relocate them? Won't that increase the burden on our own forces, which is precisely what Kerry has been complaining about? And aren't Iraqi forces getting outstanding on-the-job training fighting the terrorists alongside our own troops? Seems to me the residents of Samarra have seen quite a bit of "tangible benefit" this week.
If this is the best practical "solution" they can come up with, they're screwed. Which may be why Kerry suggested that - are you ready for this? - there are other unnamed countries who would be willing and able to muster sufficient forces to replace our troops:
"Other countries are obviously more willing to accept responsibilities,' he added, as he took questions from reporters in a school yard in Tipton, Iowa."
So we're back to the diplomatic magic 8-ball angle. Only this time it really is a mystery, because whereas before everybody knew he meant France and Germany, now nobody knows what the hell powers he's talking about. Russia? Red China? North Korea? Syria? Iran? How about the Israelis? The IDF doesn't have much to do these days....
What I can't figure out is why Kerry's pulling the plug now. Sure, Chirac and Schroeder have declared unequivocally that they'd take turns cleaning out George Bush's horse stalls with a salad fork before they'll send troops to Iraq, but that was always day-glo obvious - to everybody but Mr. French, I suppose. So why not continue the bluff? Why ride it like a one-legged pack mule all year and then drop it in the home stretch? Concern that voters won't take him seriously on foreign policy and national security?
I think the jig is up. All year, John Kerry has not had a coherent policy on Iraq. Then he traded in that incoherent policy for an irresponsible, unserious one. And now he's left with no Iraq policy at all, as evidenced by his return to grasping at whatever comes up in the news cycle to take shots at the President - in this case, Paul Bremer's comments on troop levels that Big Media, naturally, twisted into a ready-made Kerry soundbite.
And the best part is, he's all but thrown in the towel on the issue that he made the vehicle that would carry him to victory.
I don't know what else Lurch can say about Iraq between now and November 2nd. But we do know this: it won't matter, and nobody will be able to make heads or tails of it.
Not even he.
posted by JASmius at 10:16 PM
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