Threatening chaos

We are told that if the U.S. withdraws from Iraq, there will be chaos there. Put aside for the moment the fact that the people who are telling us this have a nearly perfect record for being wrong about everything. Let’s assume that they are correct.

If it’s true, then we must also assume that there is intelligence to support this conclusion. We must also assume that the leadership of Iraq knows the truth, and even if it is not evident to them, the U.S. can show them the intelligence, which has been so persuasive to King George the Incompetent.

Now, chaos is a bad thing. I assume that the leadership in Iraq likes being in the leadership, and chaos is directly threatening to them. That’s a good thing, and I will explain why.

What it means is that the threat of us leaving and the chaos which is to follow is something with which the U.S can exert leverage against the leadership in Iraq.

What shall we exert pressure upon the Iraqis to do? Get up an army, get a working police force, get some oil production on line, get an agreement on oil revenue sharing, work out a federal system for Iraq. The list could go on, but it doesn’t take a lot of imagination to figure out where we want to be and what it is going to take to get there.

There’s another question: what can we do to leverage the leadership in Iraq. And this is not a tough question, either. The answer is to give the Iraqi leadership timetables and enforce them with the threat of leaving.

Really, the only thing it takes is a congressional democratic leadership whose knees don’t go all wobbly when someone threatens to call them a wussy. Instead, we have a bunch of wussies.

“… and tell ’em Big Mitch sent ya!”