You Break You Fix It

TW: Tom Ricks has written extensively on Iraq and is very hooked into to our military establishment. His theme is simple there are no easy answers in Iraq so get used to it regardless of your political persuasion.

To me I like others am not sure what the best route to take is at this point, although fewer troops in general and the majority of those remaining stationed in Kurdistan is my preference. The fundamental point though is avoiding these catastrophes in the first place, which is why I am glad we have a new POTUS. I can only hope he does not do something stupid in Iran.

From Tom Ricks at Foreign Policy Mag:
"Salon just carried an insightful review of my [Rick's] book [the Gamble] that triggered a mudslide of nasty letters from the magazine's readers.

"If you enjoyed 'Fiasco,' thrilled to have your prejudices about the clueless Bush administration confirmed, it's your responsibility to read 'The Gamble' to have some prejudices challenged," wrote the reviewer, Joan Walsh, Salon's editor-in-chief. I think she really captured the ambivalence at the heart of the book, the sense that staying in Iraq is far from appealing, but may be the least worst choice available. Her review concludes that, "I still want troops out of Iraq as soon as possible. But reading this well-reported book may have changed even my notion of what that means."

Her readers didn't like hearing that, and posted a variety of angry responses. Here's the note I sent to Walsh after reading some, but not all, of the 117 responses:

Looking over the comments on your review, I think what a lot of people are failing to grasp, or are resisting understanding, is that there are no good answers in Iraq. The question many of them don't seem to want to face is, what is the least bad answer?

It was a pre-emptive war launched on false premises that distracted us from the task at hand in Afghanistan. Everything that has happened in Iraq since then is the fruit of that poisoned tree. Given that original sin, what do we do? Staying in Iraq isn't appealing. Leaving risks genocide and regional war.

So what do your more vehement readers recommend? What do you do if both courses of action are bad, even immoral?"
http://ricks.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2009/02/19/stuck_in_iraq