"America's commitment is not open-ended"

President's Address to the Nation
10 Jan 2007
I've made it clear to the Prime Minister and Iraq's other leaders that America's commitment is not open-ended. If the Iraqi government does not follow through on its promises, it will lose the support of the American people -- and it will lose the support of the Iraqi people. Now is the time to act.

Dear Mr. President: You were absolutely right. America's commitment is not open-ended. The Iraqi government will lose the support of the American people, and the support of the Iraqi people.

Your Administration will also lose the support of the American people.

You make a show of promoting democracy around the world. Do you know the meaning of the word? Do you know what it entails? Things like dialog and compromise. Sitting down with your opponents, not for photo ops, but to resolve problems in some mutually satisfactory way - with no side getting all or exactly what they'd hoped for, but all sides willing to abide by the decisions made. Relying on political process - not raw military strength - to achieve progress.

"Democracy" implies a whole lot more than folks proudly holding up purple-ink-stained fingers.

It implies a willingness to talk with - not just to - your political opponents. Sure, you hate their guts, and they hate yours... but if you can't get past the hate there's no hope.

Our tactics - your tactics - have done nothing to promote reconciliation among the warring factions. Instead, the U.S. military has become just another competing militia, one among many. We support our "friends" and attack our "enemies"... and the designations "friend" and "enemy" are amazingly fluid and situational. We arm and finance the Sunni Awakening Councils, whom we used to fight; they are now - for tactical military reasons - our "friends", tho' they used to be our "enemies".

We long ago lost whatever credibility we had as an honest, neutral arbitrator.

We responded to the Mahdi Militia's very generous unilateral cease-fire by targetting its leaders. Ever since Bremer's disastrous decision to shut down his newspaper we've viewed al Sadr only as an "enemy" - though he has made it clear that he wants to participate in the political process. The Mahdi Militia has been providing basic social services to Sadr City since the invasion - when our ineptitude and incompetence destroyed whatever existing government-based services had existed before.

We have adopted what has been called a traditional Iraqi mindset: only strength is respected. Dialog, compromise, and other concommitants of political process we now view in ourselves as weakness.

All originally stated war aims have been achieved. Saddam has been deposed, tried, and executed. Iraq has no WMD. A framework for government has been established.

Our continuing presence does nothing to promote the development of a stable Iraq. Indeed, our continuing presence can easily be construed as contributing to Iraq's continuing instability.

Iran is not destabilizing Iraq.
We are.

It is time to leave.
Now.
Today.

Stop the madness!