The solution in Iraq is not military or political

President Bush has yet to announce his new strategy for Iraq, and yet there is already much analysis on what it is expected to contain.

In response to reports that the President will send more troops to the battlefield, Democrats are lining up with the mantra, "There is no military solution. There is only a political solution."

It takes a politician to feel such conviction in the power of politics. What track record is there that tell us that politics can bring peace to Iraq? There is none.

The course of the war in Iraq is at a critical juncture. One comment to an earlier post on this blog referred to speculation about how people in a prosperous Iraq 40 years from now might look back on this war and the U.S. role in it with gratitude. If that prosperous Iraq is to come about, things need to start going very well right now.

Egypt's president is saying that his country needs a nuclear deterrent. He's known for many years that Israel has nuclear weapons, but it is only now, when Iran is acquiring nuclear weapons and appears to be ascendant in Iraq, that Egypt decides it needs nuclear weapons, too. Clearly, he is preparing for the possibility that the war in Iraq expands into a regional conflict. If that happens, Iraq 40 years from now is not likely to be prosperous, and it is not likely to look back with gratitude on what we Americans are doing in their country today.

The Bush administration can increase the number of troops, but at best that will only buy some time to put into effect a genuine strategy for peace that is neither military nor political. The administration needs to reach out to every American who is passionate about ending the war, including people such as Cindy Sheehan. It needs to get these people to Iraq working to bring peace.