Ralph Peters throws in the towel

The decline continues apace. Ralph Peters is the staunchest of war supporters and now he throws in the towel.

IRAQ'S NEW SECRET POLICE MILITARY GOV'T MAY BE BEST ANSWER



It's time to abandon the cops. Let the anti-American elements in the Maliki government have them. Don't continue to strengthen our enemies. Concentrate on developing and expanding the army.

Why? Here's where the truth gets still uglier. As dearly as we believe in democracy, Iraq's Arabs are proving that they're incapable of the political, social and moral maturity necessary to run an elected government.

Casting ballots alone doesn't make a democracy. The government has to function. And to protect all of its citizens.

In the coming months, we may find that the only hope of restoring order is a military government. It sounds repellent, but a U.S.-backed coup may be the only alternative to endless anarchy.

Arabs still can't govern themselves democratically. That's the appalling lesson of our Iraqi experiment. A military regime might be capable of establishing order and protecting the common people.

We've got to prepare the national military to take on the local police. And the insurgents. And the militias. And the foreign terrorists.

...

We have only two rational choices. The first is to read the government the riot act, then give democracy one more year. If Iraq's leaders refuse to lead honorably and effectively - and get the police and militias under control - we should abandon Iraq (except for Kurdistan) by autumn 2007. The other option is to start preparing the best Iraqi military leaders to take charge of their country.

...

What has become of our dreams for democracy when today's Iraqi police are worse than Saddam's and the most humane possibility for the country is a military government? The answer is that Arab civilization has revealed itself as a catastrophic failure.


Emphasis mine. Seriously, if his assessment is this bad, things must be really dire. Like Peters I was a staunch war supporter. I still believe we were right to go in but in the end, Transformation was our undoing. I lay the blame for that at Rumsfeld's door. His Generals and Admirals who were too afraid to ask for more troops share that blame. Flag officers are political animals and they know that rocking the boat will endanger their career. That they've said time and again that they don't need more troops is either delusional or lying. Either proposition renders them unfit for their position.

I support Peters' proposal. We set up goal based timetables and if they fail to meet them, they're on their own. We cannot continue apace forever. If we find ourselves leaving in autumn of 2007 we should move our troops to Kurdistan and encourage them to declare themselves sovereign.

Comments

The Last Ephor said…
Ugh. I can't go over that ground again.

Errors are not lies.

Transformation works for warfighting not for nation building.

The NYT showed Saddam was one year away from a nuclear bomb.

There were links between al-Qaeda and Iraq. They may not have been operational but where there's smoke...

I'm not saying we were wrong to go but rather that we're screwing it up now.

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