Category Archives: The War

The two best ideas of the Iraq Study Group’s 79 recommendations are being implemented, according to Bing West, a Vietnam veteran and former assistant secretary of defense in the Reagan administration. Namely, vastly increasing the number of American advisers with the Iraqi army (which CENTCOM press releases said before the report was released was already underway), and turning that army over to the new Iraqi government by late spring. The latter because former CENTCOM commander Gen. John P. Abizaid has told Congress that Iraqi PM Maliki will, by February, take care of the main threat of civil war, Mookie Sadr and his murderous militia.

Meanwhile, the most ridiculous ideas, it is generally agreed, are the ones about negotiating with the dictators of Iran and Syria to help stabilize the situation–as if they wanted the first successful Arab democracy on their borders. So, naturally, that is what Sen. Kerry has set out to do. He is flaunting federal law and White House policy to go visit Baby Assad in Damascus to chat it up. Not too surprising, since Kerry flaunted federal law and Nixon White House policy in the early 1970s to go to Paris to meet with the North Vietnamese.

The scuttlebutt is that the Paris trip cost Kerry, who was still a Navy reserve officer, a dishonorable discharge, which President Carter later fixed. But we can’t be sure until Big John releases his military records, which he has consistently refused to do. At least he’s no longer in the military, so he hasn’t that part to worry about. And, so far at least, he doesn’t plan to go to Iran.