There are embittered insiders, and then there is Henry Kissinger, who told the BBC today:
âIf you mean, by âmilitary victory,â an Iraqi government that can be established and whose writ runs across the whole country, that gets the civil war under control and sectarian violence under control in a time period that the political processes of the democracies will support, I donât believe that is possible.â
The emphasis is mine. I am not inclined to read this as Kissinger turning on the Administration, so much as it is him once again stating his view that the American people are insufficiently steady and resolved to see war through to victory. If the public would just buck up and if the Democrats had not prevailed in the midterm elections, Kissinger implies, then military victory in Iraq would still be possible.
It is a point, of course, that Kissinger has spent more than thirty years trying to make about Vietnam. What better way to drive that point home than by making Iraq a historical parallel.
An old man chasing ghosts.
