– that somebody else do something.
You could go read the full text of Sen. John McCain’s resolution designed to “provide some comfort to the American people and that certain benchmarks are being met as far as measuring progress or lack of progress is concerned“, but essentially it’s a US resolution for the Iraqi government to do things because “America’s commitment is not open-ended”.
We can assume that “progress” means either an end to, or at leastr a significant drop off in, the civil war but while he talks about benchmarks and measuring progress there are no time frames mentioned for them in his resolution.
The Bush administration has also said that “America’s commitment is not open-ended”, but they haven’t mentioned any time frames either. When answering a question on January 11<sup>th</sup> on how long US forces would be in Iraq Condoleezza Rice answered that she could not give an “exact timetable” because most of the work needed to be done by Iraqi forces and the Iraqi government.
– and it doesn’t look like they have a ‘Plan B’ on the books in the event that the Iraqi government either does not, or can not, meet US expectations.
According to Condoleezza Rice (January 11, 2007 when asked about what happens if the plan does not work)
“It’s bad policy to speculate on what you’ll do if a plan fails when you’re trying to make a plan work.”
So lets see where we are:
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The Iraqi government has to perform (so to help them the US is gonna)
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Add more US boots on the ground (but not forever because)
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Americas commitment is not open-ended (and Iraq must meet)
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Benchmarks that are not articulated (because)
- The consequences of failure are disastrous (and if this plan doesn’t work)
- There is no plan
If the consequence of failure are in fact of historic (and just possibly biblical) in nature what options are there for the Bush administration?
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Leave? No, failure and/or surrender are not options
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Stay until it works? No, Americas commitment is not open-ended
I’m tired of the unimaginative “so come up with a better plan” that the Bush administration and the people who back it spout off every time one of his new/old/new plans hits the table.
I want answers from them. What is “not open-ended”? Is it:
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3 months
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6 months
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9 months
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12 months
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18 months
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2 years
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longer?
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none of the above?
– and (keeping in mind that neither failure nor cut ‘n run are options) after “not open-ended” has been reached, what next?
There are two, and only two restrictions placed on answers.
- the “It’s bad policy to speculate on what you’ll do if a plan fails when you’re trying to make a plan work” answer has already been used - it’s off the table now
- the “it depends on them” answer has already been used - it’s off the table
“‘It’s bad policy to speculate on what you’ll do if a plan fails when you’re trying to make a plan work.’”
Gaaahhhh! I sure as hell hope she meant that it’s bad policy to speculate out loud! If she really and truly does not have one or more contingency plans cookin’ on the back burner, we are all in one big pile o’ doodoo!