Through a close reading of Bush's speech last night (eeewwww), Billmon has detected a slight but telling shift in rhetoric. Sounds like Rove's leaving a window open to the possibility of negotiating with insurgents. Who, of course, were terrorists just last Saturday.
Iraqi forces have fought bravely – helping to capture terrorists and insurgents in Najaf, Samarra, Fallujah, and Mosul. (emphasis added)
To complete the mission, we will continue to hunt down the terrorists and insurgents (emphasis added)
Today Iraqi Security Forces are at different levels of readiness. Some are capable of taking on the terrorists and insurgents by themselves. (emphasis added)
Hugh Hewitt, on the other hand, didn't listen so closely.
That is the key point in the speech, the key point in the debate, and the president's clarity in making it made it a very successful speech. Over and over again he and his Administration, his supporters and the military must make that point again and again: It is all one war.
I wonder how the right will react when negotiations, inevitably, begin?
Which right are you talking about? The KJ Lopez wing, which will inevitably defend whatever it is the president does, so long as it's opposed by some Democrat, somewhere? The Rush Limbaugh wing, for whom any action that does not involve torturing someone is "soft" (and thereby ably provides cover for Bush to be able to paint himself as a moderate)? Or the McCain wing, which will provide veiled criticism of the administration's actions, pretend to call them on their shit when it seems safe to do so, but refuse to call for any sort of actual investigation or condemnation of said administration?
The answers:
KJL: Wow, the president once again outflainked his opponents by proving he's willing to use every tool necessary to bring Iraq into the full flowering of freedom!
RL: Friends, let me tell you what's going on here. Liberals will claim, hypocrites that they are, that the Iraqi government shouldn't be having discussions with Sunnis, because it's "negotiating with terrorists." But these are the same people who, as Karl Rove so ably put it, would rather have therapy sessions than fight! Are these the people any sane person should listen to when it comes to strategy??
JM: I am in full support of president and our troops.
Bonus Instapundit reaction: Heh.
Whoa.
Jonathan Kelly said it all.
Emphyrio
Genius, Jonathan.
Genius? More like clueless. The recent increase of attacks in Iraq is used as evidence of a failure of Bush's Iraq policy. The attacks clearly picked up after the Shiites formed a government without Sunnis, so the increase is the Shiites own doing. Can't blame Bush for that one.
I can blame Bush for not having a plan, though, which he didn't. The post-war occupation plan for Japan was 900 pages long. The post war plan for Iraq was 0 pages long.
Bush's policy, today at least, is nation building in Iraq. If that fails, I could give a hell whose fault it is, it will still be a failure of Bush's policy.
Post a Comment