What I Learned About Iraq From Losing a Consultant

Recently, our computer programming project ran out of budget for external consultants. At what I particularly felt was a very inopportune time to let them go, we let them go. Interestingly, however, I learned a great deal about myself in the process. That is, when I don't have someone to fall back on, I have the ability to rise the occasion.

Since the consultants left, I have become a markedly better programmer. I have come to several solutions that at first appeared to be very small needles in very giant haystacks. The key realization I came to just yesterday was that had my subject matter experts (the consultants) not left, I would have been content to float along in my relative mediocrity.

It is a very imperfect comparison, I know, but I'd like to illustrate my situation as a microcosm of Iraq. America is the subject-matter expert for Iraq--their crutch. As the situation drags on, Iraqis will be more likely to "float along in [their] relative mediocrity". At some point, coming soon to a theater near you, Iraq needs to get rid of its consultants. I guess I'm glad that President Bush announced last night that he intends to draw the American forces down over the next few months to pre-surge levels, although I don't think he did a good job of explaining why.

Lanny Davis, former member of the Clinton Administration, appeared on Greg Allen's the Right Balance this morning. He made a good point. The Democrats have a good point, which I have just spent the last couple of paragraphs essentially agreeing with. They are not, however, articulating it very well.

Lanny Davis said that we need to have a phased draw down in fairly short order to let the Iraqis know that it's time to realize that their consultants are leaving. Every Democratic candidate for president believes this. So far I think only Barack Obama has done a good job of articulating it. Only one Republican candidate, Ron Paul, believes that the consultants should take their leave. He has articulated very well, too.

I think the surge is working. I think Iraqis are realizing that the Americans (at least the soldiers, if not the politicians) care for them. I think the Americans know that it is a tenuous relationship, i.e. that the Sunnis in Anbar will turn against the Americans if we overstay our current purpose.

Our current purpose, I think, will soon be at an end. Let's give the Iraqis notice that they will soon be on their own, and let's hope and trust that they will be able to shine without their consultants.

The Accomplishments of the Iraq Study Group

The vaunted Iraq Study Group's main accomplishments to date have been to issue a series of empty platitudes, to embolden terrorists who think America is now beatable even on our own soil, and to cause to plummet the desire of the American populace to endure until a peaceful solution in Iraq is achieved.

Part two of the one-two punch has just been delivered. First, the Democrats took power in both houses of Congress, a defeat which the Republicans richly deserved. Now, just as the Republicans are staggering back up off the canvas, the Iraq Study Group weighs in.

The Iraqis didn't think much of it, nor did the Israelis or the US military. For that matter, neither did the mullahs.

"Abandon ship! Abandon ship! But not for a few more months!"

Perhaps this was not the intent of the ISG report, but liberals, both of the political and the media persuasion are latching onto the report to further their Bush hatred. The claim is essentially that Bush's policies have been all wrong and that he is at fault for the mayhem occurring in Iraq. A favorite verb in the past few days is "repudiate".

The report isn't all fodder for Bush haters. Some good has come of it, such as the mention that Saudi Arabians are deep into funding the Sunni side of the killing in Iraq.

But William Bennett had this to say about it:

Perhaps the most systemic problem with the report is it didn’t tell us how to win; it answered how to get out. The commissioners answered the wrong question, but it was the only one they wanted to answer. In all my time in Washington, I’ve never seen such smugness, arrogance or such insufferable moral superiority. Self-congratulatory. Full of itself. Horrible.

Terror leaders are jubilant in that, because of the tenor of the ISG report, they feel they have and will continue to prevail over America.

Abu Abdullah said following a withdrawal from Iraq, the U.S. will be defeated on its own soil.

"America must understand that with anti-American governments in Latin America and with Islam growing and reinforcing, including in the U.S. itself, the next step would be a total defeat on their (American) land, not a relative one like they are facing in Iraq," he said.

About the time the ISG report was prematurely made available to the American media, the war's popularity rating was at only 36%, and it's going down.