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.

Cindy Sheehan should go to Iraq

World Peace Herald has received a long press release that begins:

On January 9-13, a first-ever international delegation of former prisoners,
families of current prisoners, US lawyers and human rights activists will travel
to hold a conference on prison abuses and march to the Cuban-side security gate
of the US Naval Base to call for the closure of the illegal prison. The protest
in Cuba is part of the January 11 International Day to Shut Down Guantanamo, the
day that marks the 5-year anniversary of the first prisoners being sent to
Guantanamo.

Cindy Sheehan is included in the list of participants.

The position of this blog is that Ms. Sheehan needs to go to Iraq, not Cuba, if she is to achieve her objective of ending the war in Iraq. Let's say the group going to Cuba is successful in closing the terrorist prison at Guantanamo. How is that going to shorten the war in Iraq? The prison issue is peripheral to the main issue, which is the fighting in Iraq.

Cuba is the wrong choice for Ms. Sheehan. If she goes to Cuba, she will be falling off message and wasting her time. She needs to go to Iraq and speak to Iraqi leaders about peace and reconciliation with a passion and conviction that can only come from a mother who has lost her son.

The Bush administration should help her go there and arrange the meetings for her.

Cindy Sheehan, ambassador for peace?

Cindy Sheehan, the peace activist whose soldier son died in Iraq, has won herself and her cause another few seconds of fame by demonstrating against the Democratic Party congressional leadership. Unfortunately, it is unlikely that her actions shortened the war in Iraq, or the U.S. participation in it, by so much as a millisecond.

It would seem that Ms. Sheehan has the potential to join the ranks of women in various parts of the world who have had substantial impact in bringing an end to deadly conflicts by crying out, "Enough! No more." But she is falling far short of that mark.

For Ms. Sheehan to honor the memory of her son and make a difference in bringing U.S. troops home, she needs to go to Iraq. That is where the fighting is. That is where the problem is. That is where she needs to be. Protesting in the safety of Washington, DC won't do it.

From the U.S. perspective, it might be good to have Ms. Sheehan in Iraq speaking to political and religious leaders with the particular conviction and fervor that can only be expressed by a mother speaking out of a heart broken by the loss of her son. Certainly, the dry unemotional pleadings of U.S. diplomats and military leaders have not had the desired effect so far. That was obvious in the way the Iraqi government handled the execution of Saddam Hussein.

This may be the kind of dramatic move by the U.S. that is needed to restore credibility to its efforts for peace. For Ms. Sheehan, it would win her and her cause a lot more attention than she is likely to get by staying in the U.S. and making cameo appearances at other people's events.

As a start, the next congressional delegation to visit Iraq might invite Ms. Sheehan to go along.