Given how disappointing the Washington Post’s editorials have been on the Iraq war over the last five years, it was mildly encouraging to read the headline on today’s piece: “After the Surge: It’s time for the president and Congress to begin talking about a smaller, more sustainable mission in Iraq.”
Sounds heartening, doesn’t it? If the headline is right, Hiatt & Co. want Bush to work with Congress on withdrawing at least some U.S. troops, and implicitly concede that the status quo, which the Post has been defending for quite some time, is not “sustainable.”
Alas, the editorial went downhill from there.
Like most states emerging from decades of repression, Iraq is likely to take years to stabilize; as its politicians and U.S. commanders keep saying, it will not conform to Washington’s timetables. Whether the United States endures through those years and continues to defend, train and support moderate Iraqi forces will do much to determine what the country looks like when it finally settles — whether it is allied with liberal and modernizing forces in the Middle East or with suicide bombers. What’s needed is not a continued surge of American forces but a mission that will be materially and politically sustainable. Now is the time for Congress and the Bush administration to begin talking about what that mission should be.
The Post, of course, sets a few conditions for what those talks might include.
Troop withdrawals must be connected to developments on the ground: U.S. commanders will try to hand off authority in Baghdad to Iraqi forces so that the gains of the surge will not be lost.
For that matter, Hiatt & Co. endorse a policy whereby 100,000 U.S. troops remain in Iraq after the surge is deemed successful, while the editorial approves of the administration’s model of post-war Korea as a template, despite the fact that it doesn’t make any sense.
Maybe the Post should have just quit after the headline.
