Cut And Run Redux

John Kerry has written about his plans for dealing with Iraq and they involve hoping to hell someone else takes the job for him. Kerry’s plan?

Lead NATO to make the security of Iraq one of its global missions and to deploy a significant portion of the force needed to secure and win the peace there. NATO participation will open the door to greater international involvement from non-NATO countries.

Guess what, Johnny-boy – France isn’t playing that game. Their conquerorsbuddies in Germany aren’t going to switch either. No matter how much Kerry places lips to ass, NATO isn’t going to do jack in Iraq. Sending any significant number of troops would be political suicide for France and Germany – Chirac and Shröder are already hanging by political threads – they sure as hell aren’t going to stick their necks out for John Kerry and his salles Americains. Besides, neither the French nor the Germans can offer A:) significant numbers of troops and especially B:) the logistical support necessary to feed and arm them. Our logistical systems are already stretched thin. Given the performance of French “peacekeepers” in Kosovo, the last thing we need is to carry around a load of Gallic dead weight. If this is Kerry’s secret plan, we’re humped.

Internationalize the reconstruction efforts in Iraq to end the continuing perception of a U.S. occupation and help coordinate the rebuilding.

Yeah, it’s not like there are dozens of countries from Italy to Japan working in Iraq. Nope, it’s just the US. No Brits, no Aussies, no Japanese, no Czechs, just us.

If Kerry is so smart, why does he have the pathological inability to understand that the word “unilateral” means one country and not dozens?

Considering that it’s the Iraqis who now have sovereign control of their country, bringing in more forces to “aid in the reconstruction” would have to come at the behest of the Iraqis, not the President. One would think that Kerry would know this by now.

Launch a massive and accelerated training effort to build Iraqi security forces that can provide real security for the Iraqi people, including a major role for NATO. This is not a task for America alone; we must join as a partner with other nations.

That’s such a great idea that it’s already been done. Doesn’t Kerry read his briefings, or is he more interested in deliberately ignoring these efforts?

Plan for Iraq’s future by working with our allies to forgive Iraq’s multibillion-dollar debt and involve our allies in the development of a new Iraqi constitution and the political arrangements needed to protect minority rights. At the same time, we should convene a regional conference with Iraq’s neighbors to secure a pledge of respect for Iraq’s borders and non-interference in Iraq’s national affairs.

Debt reduction is something Kerry could, in theory, be somewhat effective at. Then again, it’s the least of our concerns at the moment.

Certainly the Iranian mullahs and the Syrian Ba’athists are interfering in Iraq’s attempts at rebuilding by allowing terrorists to enter Iraq and by funding terrorists like Moqtada al-Sadr. However, if Kerry is naïve enough to believe that a conference will be enough to get these governments to stop supporting terrorism, he’s not living in the real world. Of course, when Kerry sends our forces home in defeat, it won’t be long before Iraq is carved up by Iran and Syria and turned into a puppet state as Syria did with Lebanon.

And of course, we have the single biggest reason why Kerry simply cannot be trusted on national security:

As president, I will never send troops into battle without the right equipment or a plan to win the peace. I will bring back our nation’s time-honored tradition: The United States never goes to war because we want to. We only go to war because we have to.

First of all, Kerry voted against equipping our troops in Iraq. He said it was so that he wouldn’t give Bush a “blank check”. I’d like him to go to Baghdad and tell our soldiers that their bullet-proof vests would have been a “blank check” for Bush. I’d also like to see Kerry reconcile his own statement that not voting for the $87 billion would be “irresponsible” and would leave our troops in danger.

Secondly, the Kerry Doctrine is a doctrine which should have been discredited on September 11, 2001. Waiting for an “imminent threat” before dealing with terrorism is suicide on a national scale. We do not have the luxury of seeing armies amassing at the borders or fleets heading to our lands. All it takes is 19 people and a few boxcutters to launch the most devastating attack on US soil since the War of 1812. We must deal with these threats before they become imminent – otherwise the results could be an American city flattened to the ground or tens of thousands dead of smallpox or anthrax.

If this is Kerry’s plan, it shows that he is fundamentally out of touch with the realities of the post-September 11 world. It is clear that Kerry’s plan consists of hoping to hell that our allies take the job of safeguarding Iraq, and when they say no, Kerry will cut and run, leaving the US to once again leave a people to the wolves. As Allah notes, Kerry’s whole campaign wants to return us to Vietnam – and we all know how that ended: