[richlevy]

Originally posted by Yelof


Lets hope that once Kerry has the election sown up, he can switch to talking about an exit strategy. He doesn't talk about one much now because he is afraid to sound unpatrotic. I think his current strategy of more international involvement might suffer from what Colin Powel called "china shop rules" i.e. you break it you fix it, unless he delivers real sovereignty to the Iraqes and sets a withdrawl date for American troops.

His one advantage would be that he is not George Bush. Bush has so much personal prestige invested in this war and is so hated abroad that noone would want to spend the lives of their citizens to bail the US out if it would benefit him. The whole 'pay to play' announcment for rebuilding contracts was the last bit of hubris to come out of this administration.

Now the US is trying desperately to get Europe, including the 'old Europe' dismissed so casually 17 months ago Old Europe remarks, to buy into Iraq without the US admitting that we made a mistake or are in any kind of trouble. Of course it's really hard to kiss ass if you're trying to save face.

Now that we have broken Iraq, it is in everyone's interest to clean it up. And a sincere request by 'anybody but Bush', coupled with open bidding on reconstruction, will probably get us allies back.