Here’s yet another sign that Goerge Bush has lost and we must concentrate on an exit strategy which minimizes the damage. Henry Kissinger has conceded that a military victory in Iraq is not possible:
Military victory is no longer possible in Iraq, former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger said in a television interview broadcast Sunday.
Kissinger presented a bleak vision of Iraq, saying the U.S. government must enter into dialogue with Iraq’s neighbors _ including Iran _ if progress is to be made in the region.
“If you mean by ‘military victory,’ an Iraqi government that can be established and whose writ runs across the whole country, that gets the civil war under control and sectarian violence under control in a time period that the political processes of the democracies will support, I don’t believe that is possible,” he told the British Broadcasting Corp.
A major problem with Bush’s plans from the start (beyond having no plan for stabilization after Saddam was removed) was his refusal to work with the United Nations and other countries. While Bush should have done this from the start, Kissinger is one of many who thinks Bush must start now:
Kissinger, whose views have been sought by the Iraqi Study Group, led by former Secretary of State James Baker III, called for an international conference bringing together the permanent members of the U.N. Security Council, Iraq’s neighbors–including Iran–and regional powers like India and Pakistan to work out a way forward for the conflict.
Gee Henry,
You must have read Kerry’s plan!
I am glad to hear Kissinger say that we should talk to Iran. Because without diplomacy, we will never achieve stability in Iraq. We must hold serious and ongoing discussions with all of Iraq’s neighbors. Diplomacy means to talk with your enemies not just your friends. It is true that we can no longer win militarily in Iraq. We must now focus on direct talks with Iran, Syria. Iraq must take a larger role in this as they seem to be doing by agreeing to talk to Syria and Iran. But we must take a larger role in these talks. Our absence in these talks reflects how much we have lost our moral authority in the world.
The talks will be more productive if we are involved. The same goes for North Korea. Six party talks don’t work. We must talk to our enemies. If we can talk secretly with insurgent groups in Iraq surely we can talk to Iran, Syria and North Korea.