Iraq: The Decade After
March 29th, 2007 by
Senior Editor: Jeff
James Taranto of the Wall Street Journal reminds us of what two U.S. Senators said in 2002:
Although no one doubts our forces will prevail over Saddam Hussein’s, key regional leaders confirm what the Foreign Relations Committee emphasized in its Iraq hearings last summer: The most challenging phase will likely be the day after — or, more accurately, the decade after — Saddam Hussein.
Once he is gone, expectations are high that coalition forces will remain in large numbers to stabilize Iraq and support a civilian administration. That presence will be necessary for several years, given the vacuum there, which a divided Iraqi opposition will have trouble filling and which some new Iraqi military strongman must not fill…Americans are largely unprepared for such an undertaking. President Bush must make clear to the American people the scale of the commitment.
Republicans who were sent packing in 2006? Nay, dear reader, it was Senators Biden and Hagel.
They were right-on in their prediction/analysis: the hardest part has been the “peace” after the war. AND that “Americans are largely unprepared for such an undertaking.”
Now they are the first in line to sign up for a retreat after four years (let alone 10).
