Sunday, February 18, 2007

A less unhelpful way to oppose the surge

I assume any readers I have are aware that Congress has been debating nonbinding resolutions opposing the troop surge in Iraq. ("Resolution" is an odd term for a way of expressing a lack of resolution. But I digress.) I take a dim view of this exercise. For largely domestic political reasons, the Congressfolk are strongly reinforcing the view, so prevalent before 9/11 and partly contributing to it, that the U.S. is a paper tiger.

However, there is a way that Congress and commentators could express skepticism about, and outright oppose, the "surge" without doing such damage. They could simply point out that Iraq is only one front in the larger war against resurgent Islamism, and demand that we move on to other targets. Point out that the situation in Iraq is threatening to us mainly insofar as it empowers or undermines other countries in the region, and argue for a focus on those countries instead. "On to Iran!" "On to Syria!" No paper tigerdom there.

Unrelated note: I gather this will be my last opportunity to post before attempting the switch to New Blogger. If I never post again, please assume it's due to technical inability rather than the also-plausible mental lethargy.