The good news for those who continue to support the "forward strategy of freedom," which includes the democratization of Iraq, is that each alternative to maintaining a steady counter-terrorist operation relies on some acceptance of the ludicrous. Maybe totalitarian forces in the region will keep to themselves after Iraq and its citizens have been devoured, maybe the United States will be able to dissimulate abandonment. Frederick Kagan of the American Enterprise Institute has added that "Some of the most important training Iraqi Army units get today comes from operating side-by-side with American combat units" — so, following an arbitrary retreat as recommended by the Iraq Study Group, how will an adequate defensive force be instructed? Correspondence course?
As early as March 28, 2003, former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld regarded Iranian and Syrian paramilitary incursions into Iraq as "unhelpful." As recently as two months ago, that same word was still the only evident response from Washington to either country. Now, the signal proposal from the Iraq Study Group is to plead with Damascus and Tehran — to play the part of the old television Western dupe who gives away the grazing land to the men who have furtively arsenicated his cattle. This most offends those who are not inclined to trust tyrannical governments, and should; it troubles George Bush and Tony Blair, who spoke dubiously of it earlier today, and should. Yet here are two states that have, boldly, tried to hamstring a representative government, killing allied soldiers in the process, and neither Washington nor London take to punitive recourse. What else are James Baker and his panel going to think? Thrown an interpolative question from a BBC reporter — Are you still in denial? — Bush offered the man an appropriately remedial ground assessment. "Historians will look back and say, how come Bush and Blair couldn't see the threat?" A good defense, but the president needs to examine how aligned he is with that premonition.