Can we talk with the grownups now?

February 23, 2007

I know this news is a couple of days old, but according to the DNC’s main blog:

Today British Prime Minister Tony Blair announced that Great Britain will begin to redeploy its troops out of Iraq - a major blow to the Bush White House as it faces mounting criticism to its plan to escalate the Iraq War.

The White House is trying to spin this as good news. Today Vice President Cheney called the decision an “affirmation that there are parts of Iraq where things are going pretty well.” But the American people disagree. According to a recent Newsweek poll, only 24 percent of Americans approve of how Bush is handling the war.

How can it be a major blow to the White House if Tony Blair himself quite clearly affirms that the drawdown is a result of some measurable level of local success, that plenty of troops remain in place to handle whatever happens next, and that this is just another of a series of British troop drawdowns that have been scheduled long before the Baghdad surge was even a twinkle in some general’s eye?

Non sequitur reference to habitually insouciant Newsweek aside, is this what passes for mature analysis on Democrats.org? Howard Dean’s suggestion that the Brits are taking an opposite (and welcome) view of the Iraq cribsheet than the Americans exhibits something a little more than base stupidity and reeks of knee-jerk contrarianism.

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Written by Vinman · Filed Under All Topics

Comments

2 Responses to “Can we talk with the grownups now?”

chris on February 24th, 2007 4:00 pm

Please expound on your logic for the less informed. If the Brits and US were on the same page, wouldn’t the Brits. just shift their troops where we believe we need them? Local success, great…can you deny that from a distance the British continued, scheduled withdrawals occurring at the same time we’re looking to add troops smacks of a fundamental ideological different view of what’s going on?
Vinman on February 24th, 2007 6:03 pm

Not at all. The British action is similar to other redeployments we have completed with our own forces in other provinces.

Let me ask you a simple question. When Blair says:

“there would be no diminution in British combat resources and said a military presence would remain into 2008 (The Guardian and The Sun reported that all British forces would leave Iraq by the end of 2008.) for as long as we are wanted and have a job to do.”

“The speed at which this happens depends, of course, in part on what we do, what the Iraqi authorities themselves do, but also on the attitude of those we are together fighting.”

. . .and Ted Kennedy surmises Blair’s announcement as a:

“stunning rejection of President Bush’s high risk Iraq policy.”

“No matter how the White House tries to spin it, the British government has decided to split with President Bush and begin to move their troops out of Iraq. This should be a wake up call to the administration,”

. . .is this just a clumsy mismatch of statements by careless editors or an outright mischaracterisation by Kennedy, who has absolutely no compunction to withhold partisan salvos?

What in Blair’s statement suggests a fundamental difference in outlook?