Lies, damned lies, and withdrawal from Iraq

It’s easy to beat up John McCain for wanting to stay the bloody course in Iraq, indeed that America might have troops there for next 100 years. McCain’s strategy won’t be merely more of the same. It will be a push way down the slippery slope. But there’s much wishful thinking and dissembling on the part of the Democrats, too.

If Iraq really were another Vietnam, withdrawal would be without serious geopolitical consequences. Yet we shouldn’t forget the moral consequences of our withdrawal, with millions of South Vietnamese facing a brutal takeover and thousands who worked for us facing far worse. Hmong tribesmen who supported the CIA’s secret war in Laos are still on the run, abandoned by the superpower that so cavalierly used them. We should have gotten out. We shouldn’t forget that the cost was high.

But Iraq is not Vietnam, a fact that should be remembered every time a Democrat drives home from an anti-war rally in his SUV.

Iraq is in the heart of the great oilfields that fuel the world
economy, not least wasteful American sprawl. So destabilization there
will have far more serious consequences. Here there is indeed a Domino
Effect, driven by religion, tribalism and the great prize of oil.
Lurking in the background is an unstable, nuclear-armed Pakistan. It’s
all connected.

The war is about oil, whether you see it through the lens of
conspiracy (hey, I’ll believe anything about Dick Cheney) or
hard-headed realism. Jim Kunstler, hardly a right-wing nutjob, likens
the presence of American troops to putting a police station in the
middle of the most dangerous neighborhood on the planet. Our soldiers
are protecting a vital lifeline to the American economy and lifestyle.
I don’t agree with these living arrangements — they are utterly
unsustainable — but this is the way it is for most Americans. Cheney
said the American lifestyle is "non-negotiable." Well, we may not
choose to negotiate, but it is unsustainable and has a growing body count.

So we’re in a mess, and, yes, the way we got there is criminal. Or,
perhaps as Bismarck would say, "it was worse than a crime, it was a
blunder." But disengagement will not be easy. So far the Democrats have
not said how they will withdraw while ensuring that the world’s oil
lifeline is protected in an increasingly volatile region. Worse, they
haven’t put forward the holistic solution that includes (really)
reducing our exposure to foreign oil, which is seeing a decline in
production and mostly located, as even President Bush acknowledged, in
"places where they don’t like us."

The lines about "research into alternative fuels" are only a little
more maddening than the ethanol scam. No alternatives have emerged that
don’t require huge inputs of petroleum to produce. Nobody in a
responsible position talks about that inconvenient truth. Meanwhile,
things we really could do, such as rebuilding the passenger train
system, increasing transit and taxing sprawl while providing
incentives for compact infill development…those aren’t even being
discussed.

Sure, a good recession will drop oil consumption for awhile. But
eventually we’re going to have to face reality. This is the whirlwind
we’ve seeded. And so far, the candidates are mere windbags of fantasy.