Take it away Eleanor

Eleanor Cliff just rips Bush a new one over Iraq in her Capitol Letter column this week and offers a look into the Administrations new strategy and where it might lead us.

Aug. 25, 2006 - If you think things are bad now, they will be worse if we leave. That’s the essence of President Bush’s argument for staying the course in Iraq. Bush is doing what he always does—shamelessly ramping up the fear factor. He says if U.S. troops leave Iraq, the terrorists will be right behind them, bringing Baghdad to America. He’s brought ruin to Iraq and his policies are helping create our worst nightmare, a nuclear Iran. How much worse can it get?

The unfortunate answer to this question is a lot worse. The Middle East is still boiling with tension. Per Bush, we are not going to leave Iraq while he is in office. Cliff gets a very sobering answer from one Dr. Ernest Evans, a military scholar linked to the U.S. Army Staff College.

“The name of the game right now is not achieving victory—it is preventing a major defeat from becoming a catastrophic defeat,”…

“I would define a major defeat as pulling out of Iraq and leaving behind complete chaos. I would define a catastrophic defeat as attacking Iran in a desperate effort to salvage Iraq and igniting a regional war. These are the painful choices before the Republic.”

So I guess the whole "freedon agenda" thing is not really going to work out, eh?