Lieberman on Surge: What’s “The Worst that Could Happen”?
[UPDATE: Welcome Atrios, C&L readers.]
Over the weekend, I caught a snippet of CSPAN’s coverage of the McCain/Lieberman “surge” party at the American Enterprise Institute. It was after all the speeches, with the Senators kibitzing with reporters as the hour ran down.
In words that should trouble any Democrats counting Lieberman in their camp, Lieberman was praising Bush as a “great leader” for bucking American opinion, as expressed in the 2006 election, in his determination to double down in Iraq. Lieberman then said something incredible:
Even those opposed to the surge, he said, “ought to at least let us try it.”
“The worst that could happen,” he continued, is that this policy could become another partisan flashpoint in Washington.
Ahem. I believe, senator, that the “worst that could happen” is that a significant number of the 20,000-30,000 troops we send to police the hornets’ nest of Baghdad could come home in body bags.
Listen, I wish as much as anyone that there were a military strategy to win this thing. The consequences of failure in Iraq are as terrible for America’s interests as they are for peace-loving Iraqis.
But it’s clear that this surge strategy is just so much grasping at straws. This isn’t a strategy for victory, it’s a last ditch effort to delay defeat. The chances for anything recognizable as “success” are beyond remote.
Meaning that the inevitable American deaths that come from this offensive will be even more tragic than the ones’ whose sacrifice the surge is meant to redeem.
The worst that can happen, Senator Lieberman, is that 2,000 more Americans die just to prove that this war was irredeemably lost a year ago.