As a “chicken hawk,” VP Cheney obviously never read “The Art of War,” the oldest known military treatise in the world, written by a true warrior, Sun Tzu. Sun-Tzu wrote that through planning, knowledge, understanding of your enemy and timing of your attack, you win the battle before you fight it. This so-called war on terror and the illegal invasion of Iraq were conceptually doomed to fail from the beginning. The war was lost at the moment it was conceived. Any understanding of history would have shown Cheney and all of those who supported this blunder that you could not take three culturally and religiously diverse segments of the former Ottoman Empire and combine them into a Jeffersonian democracy at the barrel of a gun.
Now, even Arizona Senator and Republican presidential hopeful John McCain is trying to convince the American people that all is not lost in Iraq. He recently wrote, “I disagree with what the majority of the American people want. Failure will lead to chaos, withdrawal will lead to chaos.” Well, last I checked, we have utter chaos in Iraq because our policy and the implementation of that policy have failed. Also, in a representative democracy, you can disagree with the majority of the American people, but you need to listen to what they are asking you – as their representative – to do.
Contrary to popular belief, withdrawal may not lead to chaos. It depends on how you withdraw. Most of the American lawmakers and pundits that I have heard speak on this issue are trying to have their cake and eat it too. The problem is not withdrawal; the problem is control. Most of these politicians want to withdraw from Iraq while retaining control of the region and its resources. That cannot and will not work.