You haven't seen much war commentary here - and you won't - but Thomas Friedman's latest column so completely nails the current conundrum that I have to give him credit!
He says, simply, that if he were Bush at this point, he would draft some of the country's best negotiators and send them to Baghdad with the following orders:
"I want you to move to the Green Zone, meet with the Iraqi factions, and do not come home until you've reached one of three conclusions:
1) You have resolved the power- and oil-sharing issues holding up political reconciliation;
2) You have concluded that those obstacles are insurmountable and have sold the Iraqis on a partition plan that could be presented to the United Nations and supervised by an international force
3) You have concluded that Iraqis are incapable of agreeing on either political reconciliation or a partition plan and told them that, as a result, the United States has no choice but to redeploy its troops to the border and let Iraqis sort this out on their own."
The last option is the one the Bush administration doesn't seem to be willing to consider, but that is really most crucial. As Friedman points out, when negotiating a contract, "if the other side thinks you'll never walk away, you've got no leverage." This is Bush's basic problem - the Iraqis don't believe he'll ever walk.
How come Thomas Friedman isn't running for president? Too smart?!?!?!
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