I support our president

Tonight, the President is going to surprise us all with his new plan for victory in Iraq. This major war policy address will probably run to twenty minutes or so, though with all the pre-released details, he could probably get by with announcing “What he said.” We’d all know pretty much what he meant.

I’m not sure I’ll watch the speech. I have to say watching George Bush speak has the same effect on me as listening to someone clip their fingernails. Granted, he’s made a lot of progress on the sneer. I’m sure he’s retained the best facial-expression coaches available. But still, his tone about drives me nuts, a mix of strained patience and condescending sermonizing that may have contributed to the twins’ decision to spend more time in Argentina.

Sending more troops to Iraq shouldn’t sound like cutting back my cell phone plan, but when the President speaks, my eyes do the involuntary roll thing that usually only a teenager can pull off.

More surprising to me than any details of the new plan is that I sort-of support the idea. I mean, isn’t this the plan we should have had in place before we invaded four years ago? Our goal, of course, is complete victory against the terrorists in Iraq, or at least a government that can sustain itself, defend itself, and, uh, amuse itself.

I’m not sure on that last point, but we all get the idea.

There are an easy dozen reasons why a troop surge won’t work and might make things worse, but I keep going back to Colin Powell’s pottery store doctrine: “You break it, you own it.” We broke it in Iraq. Pulling out will unquestionably make things worse. Staying the course won’t change anything. The only thing left to try is an escalation of troops, a new general with a Ph.D., and a few months of heavy pressure on the Iraqis themselves to knock it off with the bombs and bullets and electric drills long enough to at least get the electricity back up and running.

And this time we really mean it.

I give the whole thing a snowball’s chance in Baghdad, but I think we owe it to the Iraqis to make one last, great push to leave them with a little security. A mom should be able to send Ahmed to the grocery for some figs without all the time worrying about a call to get a box and come pick up her kid. This is fundamental.

How long? Six months. Benchmarks for success? A big drop in civilian casualties and a big drop in the number of insurgent-initiated attacks.

Everything else is bullshit, and bullshit walks.