Here’s a section of Bush’s strategy plan for Victory in Iraq (PDF).
This is under the section entitled "The Political Track In Detail". Key words to that heading are: "…in Detail".
Even with this solid progress, we and our Iraqi partners continue to face multiple challenges in the political sphere, including:
- Ensuring that those who join the political process leave behind violence entirely;
- Building national institutions when past divisions and current suspicions have led many Iraqis to look to regional or sectarian bodies to protect their interests;
- Building political movements based on issues and platforms, instead of identity;
- Encouraging cooperation across ethnic, religious and tribal divides when many wounds are still fresh and have been exacerbated by recent hardships;
- Convincing all regional states to welcome and actively support the new Iraqi state politically and financially;
- Building ministerial capacity to advance effective government and reduce corruption
That may seem like a lot of words (to some), but a laundry list of "challenges" is not the same thing as a "detailed strategy".
And to prove it, let’s do a thought experiment. Based on what’s written above, can you answer ANY of the following questions:
(1) HOW will we go about "ensuring that those who join the political process leave behind violence entirely"? WHAT HAS TO HAPPEN before this item can be checked off the list?
(2) HOW will we go about "building national institutions when past divisions and current suspicions have led many Iraqis to look to regional or sectarian bodies to protect their interests"? WHAT IS MEANT by "national insitutions"? WHO DECIDES WHEN "past divisions and currents suspicions" are leading Iraqis "to look to regional or sectarian bodies to protect their interests"? WHAT HAS TO HAPPEN before this item can be checked off the list?
(3) HOW will we go about "building political movements based on issues and platforms, instead of identity"? WHAT’S THE DIFFERENCE between a political movement based on issues and platforms, and a political movement based on identity (consider the political parties in this country)? WHAT HAS TO HAPPEN before this item can be checked off the list?
(4) HOW will we go about "encouraging cooperation across ethnic, religious and tribal divides when many wounds are still fresh and have been exacerbated by recent hardships"? IN WHAT FORM will this "cooperation" occur? WHAT HAS TO HAPPEN before this item can be checked off the list?
(5) HOW will we go about "convincing all regional states to welcome and actively support the new Iraqi state politically and financially"? WHAT IF THEY WON’T (Are we going to respect their autonomy or simply blow them to bits?)? WHAT HAS TO HAPPEN before this item can be checked off the list?
(6) HOW will we go about "building ministerial capacity to advance effective government and reduce corruption"? WHAT IS MEANT by "ministerial capacity"? HOW "effective" does the Iraqi government have to be before we can declare this objective complete? HOW "reduced" does corruption have to be before we can declare this objective complete?
Remember, the foregoing is from the detailed section of the new "strategy document". The report does not answer ANY of these questions. It simply moves on to the next topic.
Most of us are going Christmas shopping in the next few weeks. Maybe some of you even have a specific list of things to purchase. Do you know how you are going to get those things? Are you going online? Are you going to a specific store? Have you picked a time when to do all this?
If you have answered "yes" to any of those questions, you’ve got a more detailed strategy than this piece of drivel from the White House.