Via Ann Althouse, this critique on Power Line of Donald Rumsfeld's last memo, written two days before he got the boot.
John suggests that everyone read the memo for themselves before accepting any of the media spin on it. My take on the memo is that it doesn't sound terribly different from everything we've been doing the last two years...and that's the problem. The American people obviously wanted a different direction in Iraq from the one we've been taking. But John says it better:
The conventional wisdom is that both President Bush's firing of Rumsfeld, and the timing thereof, were dictated by political considerations. On the whole, I still think that is right. But reading Rumsfeld's final memo does raise another possibility: perhaps Bush read the memo and decided that, if the current leadership of the Defense Department couldn't come up with any ideas that represented a more significant departure from our existing policies, he would give someone else a shot.
Be that as it may, the reality is that there is no quick or easy fix for Iraq. What we have been doing isn't dumb, and it has been by no means completely unsuccessful. It sounds as though we can adjust course somewhat by, as Rumsfeld suggests, being more consistent about punishing bad behavior and rewarding good behavior. But the real change needs to come from the Iraqi people, not from us. The Iraqis will not have a functioning democracy--or, more important, a "normal" country--unless they--and by "they" I mean nearly all Iraqis, not a bare majority--want one. Absent that kind of commitment from the Iraqis themselves, our options are quite limited.
President Bush has said numerous times that this will not be a fast war. In fact, what we are trying to do by bringing democracy to Iraq is quite difficult and could take a couple of generations to complete. Transforming a society which culturally has supported tyranny over individual rights will be neither easy nor cheap.
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