Chuck Hagel, the Republican U.S. Senator from Nebraska, “this morning”:http://www.guardian.co.uk/uslatest/story/0,1282,-5224310,00.html:
Hagel scoffed at the idea that U.S. troops could be in Iraq four years from now at levels above 100,000, a contingency for which the Pentagon is preparing.
“We should start figuring out how we get out of there,” Hagel said on “This Week” on ABC. “But with this understanding, we cannot leave a vacuum that further destabilizes the Middle East. I think our involvement there has destabilized the Middle East. And the longer we stay there, I think the further destabilization will occur.”
Hagel said “stay the course” is not a policy. “By any standard, when you analyze 2 1/2 years in Iraq … we’re not winning,” he said. … “we are locked into a bogged-down problem not unsimilar, dissimilar to where we were in Vietnam,” Hagel said. “The longer we stay, the more problems we’re going to have. … What I think the White House does not yet understand – and some of my colleagues – the dam has broke on this policy,” Hagel said. “The longer we stay there, the more similarities [to Vietnam] are going to come together.” … Hagel described the Army contingency plan as “complete folly.” “I don’t know where he’s going to get these troops,” Hagel said. “There won’t be any National Guard left … no Army Reserve left … there is no way America is going to have 100,000 troops in Iraq, nor should it, in four years.” Hagel added: “It would bog us down, it would further destabilize the Middle East, it would give Iran more influence, it would hurt Israel, it would put our allies over there in Saudi Arabia and Jordan in a terrible position. It won’t be four years. We need to be out.”
Hagel was awarded two Purple Hearts for his service in Vietnam, so I’m sure that by Wednesday we’ll be hearing from Michelle Malkin that he might have shot himself in the leg a couple of times to get them. In the meantime, here’s a proleptic taster of what might be in store, courtesy of the National Review’s Rich Lowry. Way back in August 2002, Hagel was talking about the risks of invading Iraq. The Corner “spoke out in response”:http://www.nationalreview.com/thecorner/2002_08_11_corner-archive.asp#85351896:
Chuck Hagel is now deemed a foreign-policy sophisticate for mindlessly repeating over and over that there are “risks” to invading Iraq. Golly, Chuck, really? Hagel MUST have a Ph.D. in international relations or something to have developed such a nuanced view of American foreign policy. Who knows how many thousands of hours of study and thought it took Hagel to come to the conclusion that invading Iraq is “complicated” and “risky”? I bet Nebraska has never been blessed with such Metternich-ian savvy, possibly ever. So, it’s really too bad that Hagel debased his foreign-policy genius in the New York Times today by resorting to the most shamelessly stupid of peacenik arguments: “Maybe Mr. Perle would like to be in the first wave of those who go into Baghdad.” Ohhh, Chuck—your rhetorical powers are over-awing us here in The Corner. How long did it take you to think that one up?
It goes on a bit longer in this vein. You get the idea.
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C. Schuyler 08.21.05 at 7:02 pm
Ah, remembrance of idiocy past! I love these trips down memory lane. There’s a rebuttable presumption of stupidity for postings at the Corner; but here is stupidity proved after the fact. We do begin to see one of the reasons, perhaps, for the difficulty that Republicans with any of their principles intact find in challenging the line laid down by the lunatics in charge of their party. Who would willingly put up with the abuse?
John David Stutts 08.21.05 at 7:15 pm
Oh goodie! A new pinata for the Bush slime machine to beat on.
Steve LaBonne 08.21.05 at 7:32 pm
Thing is, I believe from my personal experience as well as from news reports that there are now increasing rumblings of discontent among Republican voters, even some with military connections. The usual right-wing smear campaign against a dissident like Hagel isn’t going to resonate quite the way it used to. We just may be seeing the beginning of the Karl Rove Thought Police losing their grip. Let’s hope so. A bipartisan effort to come up with a phased withdrawal plan could really force Bush’s hand.
MQ 08.21.05 at 8:51 pm
What’s upsetting here is that we have a Republican out in front on this one. Where is the Democratic leadership? Why aren’t they laying down a marker in opposition to this occupation? Hilary et. al. have been maddeningly mealy-mouthed on this.
Sven 08.21.05 at 9:03 pm
Phew. I can picture Lowry’s rant being read in an Emily Litella voice on Weekend Update.
Nevermind.
neil 08.21.05 at 9:26 pm
Hagel appears to be confusing a contingency plan with an actual intention. I imagine the US military has contingency plans for scenarios ranging from getting out in four months to staying for four years. Planning for something doesn’t mean wanting it to occur.
P O'Neill 08.21.05 at 9:46 pm
The oldies never go out of style on The (Amen) Corner:
NOW THAT’S OLD NEWS [Tim Graham]
I hate to sound snarky on a Sunday, but precisely where is the “news” in this story? “Hagel Says Iraq War Looking Like Vietnam.” He’s been saying that for two years.
Christian W. Waugh 08.21.05 at 10:03 pm
Did it ever to occur to you that Lowry might be right? I have to be honest– not very impressive rhetoric on Hagel’s part. I happen to know Hagel from a personal basis and he’s quite the foreign policy wonk, but… not sure he’s showing it. Further, I’m not sure he actually wants the Presidential nomination if he keeps amateurishly saying stuff like this.
neil 08.21.05 at 10:13 pm
There’s a certain irony in the good folk at CT defending Hagel against Bush supporters. Given that he’s a possible next (Republican) president, not Bush. If the most influential and intelligent critics of the war turn out to be Republican presidential nominees, with the anti-war left being characterized by Moore and Sheehan, then that’s a plus for the Republicans come election time.
It does strikes me that much of the anti-war argument almost assumes Bush is running again – so much energy is aimed at him. The war happened, the troops will start to come home, Republican presidential hopefuls will seek to differentiate themselves form Bush. It is they who may gain from center voters’ disenchantment with the war.
MQ 08.21.05 at 11:37 pm
Dead on, Neil. Once again the DC democratic establishment is screwing us up.
Brendan 08.22.05 at 3:56 am
Meanwhile, while the Republicans talk, another Iraqi town falls to the insurgents.
‘A three-day visit by a reporter working for the Guardian last week established what neither the Iraqi government nor the US military has admitted: Haditha, a farming town of 90,000 people by the Euphrates river, is an insurgent citadel.
That Islamist guerrillas were active in the area was no secret but only now has the extent of their control been revealed. They are the sole authority, running the town’s security, administration and communications.
A three-hour drive north from Baghdad, under the nose of an American base, it is a miniature Taliban-like state. Insurgents decide who lives and dies, which salaries get paid, what people wear, what they watch and listen to.’
By the time the Americans leave, it is safe to say that most of Iraq will be in the control of hard line Jihadists and, ahem, ‘Islamo-fascists’.
Another triumph for American foreign policy. I know I’m sleeping safer in my bed.
abb1 08.22.05 at 4:40 am
I don’t think the Guardian article describes jihadists; just god-fearing church-going deeply conservative pro-second-amendment creationist culture-of-life folks, like those common in the US South.
Steve LaBonne 08.22.05 at 7:14 am
Neil, that bothers me too. But the first priority is getting out of this mess, after that I can worry about politics.
lemuel pitkin 08.22.05 at 8:36 am
Yes, how awful they are, Mooore and Sheehan — so awful you don’t even have to say why they’re so awful, since all Responsible Liberals know that the corect response to any mention of Moore and Sheehan is instant repudiation.
In any case, neil is certainly right that, rather thean defend Cindy Sheehanb from the slime machine, a much better approach is to wish that someone immune to it would somehow appear and represent opposition to the war.
Uncle Kvetch 08.22.05 at 8:44 am
Where is the Democratic leadership? Why aren’t they laying down a marker in opposition to this occupation? Hilary et. al. have been maddeningly mealy-mouthed on this.
My understanding is that Hilary has actually cosponsored a bill to send another 80,000 US troops to Iraq. (Where they’re supposed to come from, I have no idea.)
If Iraq is in fact the new Vietnam, Hilary and Joe Biden are locked in a life-and-death struggle to be the new Hubert Humphrey.
Yes, how awful they are, Mooore and Sheehan—so awful you don’t even have to say why they’re so awful, since all Responsible Liberals know that the corect response to any mention of Moore and Sheehan is instant repudiation.
Thank you, lemuel–that needed saying. It sounds like Chuck Hagel is just getting around to realizing what Michael Moore knew 2 years ago. Which one deserves more respect?
Clayton 08.22.05 at 12:41 pm
There’s a certain irony in the good folk at CT defending Hagel against Bush supporters. Given that he’s a possible next (Republican) president, not Bush. If the most influential and intelligent critics of the war turn out to be Republican presidential nominees, with the anti-war left being characterized by Moore and Sheehan, then that’s a plus for the Republicans come election time.
(sputter, cough, sputter). This isn’t even ironic in Alanis’ sense. Since the CT isn’t a front for the DNC, it shouldn’t be surprising that if a republican says something reasonable someone might comment positively on this.
MQ 08.22.05 at 2:01 pm
I don’t think Neil was criticizing Moore and Sheehan, just pointing out that, ummm, they aren’t Democratic party elected officials. More power to them for that, I dislike politicians as much as the next guy. But if we want the Dems to make electoral gains I think it would be very useful to get people identified with the party out in front in opposing this war.
lemuel pitkin 08.22.05 at 2:06 pm
mq,
It’s awfully hard to read “the anti-war left being characterized by Moore and Sheehan [is] a plus for the Republicans” as anything other than criticism of M & S.
Alan K. Henderson 08.23.05 at 12:11 am
I have two questions: how do we pull out of Iraq and:
a) Ensure that Iraq will not destabilize like a gigantic Kosovo, or fall victim to an unfriendly neighbor that might be tempted to take advantage of the resultant power vacuum??
b) Establish a positive relationship with the Iraqis despite the fact that we abandoned them?
Nabakov 08.23.05 at 4:23 am
Iraq is nothing like Vietnam. For starters the whole US in Indochina fiasco was based from start to finish on one clear objective – stopping those dominoes from falling over. Whereas the raison d’être for the Mesopotamian caper has been a moveable feast from the git-go.
I find it amusing that the same kinda folks who castigate the left for advancing big theories about making the world a better place whle failing to take into account the vagaries of human nature, are now doing just that about Iraq.
Brendan 08.23.05 at 6:07 am
Could I say that I find these questions bizarre?
‘a) Ensure that Iraq will not destabilize like a gigantic Kosovo, or fall victim to an unfriendly neighbor that might be tempted to take advantage of the resultant power vacuum??
b) Establish a positive relationship with the Iraqis despite the fact that we abandoned them?’
Well.
The key point about Kosova (whatever one thinks about the Serbs, whatever one thinks about the bombing) is that Kosova is now a neo-colonial state run by the ‘big five’ in the security council via the UN. That’s a fact. The reason is simple. The Kosovans did not WANT to be ‘saved’ by us. They wanted to be independent (actually they probably wanted to be part of Albania but that’s another story). Current ‘diplomacy’ in the region is predicated on the (false) idea that the Kosovans can be talked out of this. The result: stalemate.
This situation is actually pretty similar to the one in Iraq. In both cases, ‘we’ will leave, goodness, of course we will, whoever thought otherwise…..
as long as certain conditions are met.
In Kosova ‘we’ will leave as soon as the Kosovans ‘see sense’ and decide to be ‘reintegrated’ with the people who were, ten years ago, trying to exterminate them.
In Iraq, ‘we’ will leave, as soon as the Iraqi security forces are set up and can
fight our wars for ussafeguard the ordinary iraqi people from democracy.In both cases, for different reasons, both these scenarios are going to be a looooooooooooong time coming and function in effect as licenses for time unlimited occupation.
(given that both these aims are impossible, Bush and Blair’s claims that ‘we’ will leave as soon as they are achieved should be taking as having the same meaning as ‘we will leave as soon as we have developed a faster than light drive’ or ‘we will leave as soon as we develop a perpetual motion motion’.
As for the unfriendly neighbour idea, you should be aware that there is a school of thought that this whole war was actually set up by Iran via Chalabi (the
Iranian spyhonest Iraqi businessman) with the intention of toppling one of the last secular regimes in the area and helping to recreate a de facto new Persian Empire.Whether this is the plan or not, it certain seems to be working.
As for the rest:
‘How do we establish a positive relationship with the Iraqis….’
Let me just stop you right there.
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