Focusing on the past — whether it’s the crappy intelligence that got us into war, the bad planning that preceded March 2003, or who was right or wrong about the Surge — isn’t what matters.
As Senator Chuck Hagel notes, it’s where we go from here that matters:
OMAHA, Neb. — Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel, fresh from an Iraq trip with Democrat Barack Obama, said the presidential candidates should focus on the war’s future and stop arguing over the success of last year’s troop surge.
Hagel mentioned both candidates, but his comments seemed directed at Republican John McCain. McCain, while Obama traveled the Middle East, attacked Obama for opposing the military escalation last year that increased security in Iraq.
“Quit talking about, ‘Did the surge work or not work,’ or, ‘Did you vote for this or support this,’” Hagel said Thursday on a conference call with reporters.
“Get out of that. We’re done with that. How are we going to project forward?” the Nebraska senator said. “What are we going to do for the next four years to protect the interest of America and our allies and restructure a new order in the world. … That’s what America needs to hear from these two candidates. And that’s where I am.”
Hagel is, I think, right. We are far beyond the point of arguing about whether invading Iraq was a good idea or not, and there’s nothing we can do about the fact that the planning for what happened after we won was pretty much non-existent, even though that in itself may be one of the reasons that the insurgency became as bad as it did in the years afterward.
And there’s really no point in arguing about the Surge at this point either. It’s over. Done.
The question is where we go from here. The Iraqi government, and the American people, have expressed the clear desire that we end our troop presence there. Absent a convincing arguing for why those two sources should be ignored, I think the future course of American policy is fairly clear.
July 25th, 2008 at 10:29 pm
Maybe Hagel will say the same thing about our troops in Germany?