Kerry Still Doesn't Get it

I made the mistake of listening to John Kerry talk to Imus this morning. (I know, I know - I won't make that mistake again).

Kerry was defending his plan to set a deadline for Iraq to form a government, and for US troops to withdraw. I'll leave aside the silliness of telling the Iraqis that we would withdraw our troops if they did not form a government by May 15, but that if they do form a government we will withdraw anyway. The part that amused me this morning was Kerry's criticism of the administration for not taking sectarian violence seriously. In doing so, he said that the insurgency was not a real threat, and that a few hundred or thousand foreign fighters would never be a threat to take over the country. He said that the Iraqis were able to prevent that from happening.

I was surprised that he had had such foresight, and I went looking at some of his past speeches to see when he had warned against overestimating the insurgent threat. The closest I came - and admittedly, it's not all that close - is this - from a speech at Georgetown University in October, 2005:

To those who suggest we should withdraw all troops immediately – I say No. A precipitous withdrawal would invite civil and regional chaos and endanger our own security. But to those who rely on the overly simplistic phrase “we will stay as long as it takes,” who pretend this is primarily a war against Al Qaeda, and who offer halting, sporadic, diplomatic engagement, I also say – No, that will only lead us into a quagmire.

The way forward in Iraq is not to pull out precipitously or merely promise to stay “as long as it takes.” To undermine the insurgency, we must instead simultaneously pursue both a political settlement and the withdrawal of American combat forces linked to specific, responsible benchmarks. At the first benchmark, the completion of the December elections, we can start the process of reducing our forces by withdrawing 20,000 troops over the course of the holidays...

And our generals understand this. General George Casey, our top military commander in Iraq, recently told Congress that our large military presence “feeds the notion of occupation” and “extends the amount of time that it will take for Iraqi security forces to become self-reliant.” And Richard Nixon’s Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird, breaking a thirty year silence, writes, ''Our presence is what feeds the insurgency, and our gradual withdrawal would feed the confidence and the ability of average Iraqis to stand up to the insurgency." No wonder the Sovereignty Committee of the Iraqi Parliament is already asking for a timetable for withdrawal of our troops; without this, Iraqis believe Iraq will never be its own country.

We must move aggressively to reduce popular support for the insurgency fed by the perception of American occupation. An open-ended declaration to stay ‘as long as it takes’ lets Iraqi factions maneuver for their own political advantage by making us stay as long as they want, and it becomes an excuse for billions of American tax dollars to be sent to Iraq and siphoned off into the coffers of cronyism and corruption.

It will be hard for this Administration, but it is essential to acknowledge that the insurgency will not be defeated unless our troop levels are drawn down, starting immediately after successful elections in December. The draw down of troops should be tied not to an arbitrary timetable, but to a specific timetable for transfer of political and security responsibility to Iraqis and realignment of our troop deployment. That timetable must be real and strict. The goal should be to withdraw the bulk of American combat forces by the end of next year. If the Administration does its work correctly, that is achievable.

I think it's neat that Kerry can forget so quickly what he said just a few months ago. It must be difficult to constantly move the ball, if you try to stay consistent.

Kerry warned that unless we drew troops down immediately and on a timetable, we could not defeat the insurgency - because our presence fueled it. Now, he has realized that it was not a serious threat - but that the sectarian violence is - and requires a drawdown on a timetable. That 'drawdown with a timetable' sure seems to be the solution to every problem.

Too bad this guy wasn't elected President, huh?