a peek inside the NSC

Duke professor Peter Feaver writes a fascinating article in Commentary magazine about the shift in the administration’s Iraq policy during his two-year tenure from 2005 – 2007. It’s an interesting look into the process of formulating a policy and watching hundreds of opportunistic leaders do their best to rip it to shreds. Those influenced by candidates because they can “talk change” would do well to read this article.

This new and different strategy, now called the “surge” but at one point called by insiders the “bridge,” emerged out of a growing recognition over 2006 that our critics were right about one thing: our Iraq policy was not working. At the same time, however, and whether knowingly or ignorantly, many of those same critics were insisting that the answer lay in pursuing precisely the same strategy we already had in place. That is, they were telling us that we needed (a) to push Iraqi government officials to come together politically and (b) to train Iraqi troops so that they could take over from American forces. We had been doing exactly these things for a year, and we had been driven to the brink.

In fairness, Feaver does leave out the parts about lighting evil cigars with hundred-dollar bills, playing evil darts using Iraqi prisoners as dartboards, and twirling their evil Snively Whiplash mustaches.

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