How To Save Iraq

The blue-ribbon Iraq Study Group has recommended a slow withdrawl of US troops from Iraq. Not a timed withdrawl exactly. More of a drawdown, but not a drawdown with any particular timetable. A phased redeployment maybe. Something time-released.

Even Donald Rumsfeld, it turns out, was thinking exactly the same thing just two days before he resigned as Secretary of Defense. He said pulling a few troops out would force the Iraqis to "pull up their socks."

I know this is good military strategy because I heard it first thing every morning in Army basic training (1967) when Drill Sergeant Johnson would turn on the lights and roar "Drop your cocks and pull up your socks!!" And by God we did, and just a few months later we were all in Vietnam, and everybody knows how that turned out.

Now, though, conservative pundits are pointing out correctly that if we leave Iraq, things will only get worse. Liberal pundits are correctly pointing out that we've been there going on four years and things have done nothing but get worse. You can see why the President needed a Blue Ribbon Study Group, but I have to say, I have some better ideas, and I didn't even get an expense account.

First, as others have been discussing on the Web, we could rehabilitate Saddam and bring him back.

Dust off the fedora. Give him back his gun.

He's just the kind of tough leader we need right now, and the fact that he's a criminal shouldn't stop us. After he was pardoned by President Ford, Richard Nixon was rehabilitated and was seen as a kind of elder statesmen. I think he even went to China a few times, and China is our friend now.

Still, lots of people would have a problem with that, which is why I did some more thinking and realized there's only one guy who can negotiate a settlement in Iraq.

Dr. Phil.

Dr. Phil is kind of a bully and he wouldn't have any problem telling the Shiite death squads they need to knock it off with the electric drills and all the time dumping bodies.

He would tell the Sunnis, "Saddam's gone! You're not it charge any more! Get over it! "

Like all good counselors, Dr. Phil speaks in exclamations.

These are just ideas, but Henry Kissinger has been hanging around the White House lately, and the last thing we need is to let him get involved. It took him years to get us out of Vietnam (Peace with Honor), and he already has a Nobel Peace Prize. Give somebody else a chance!