Forget the fact that Bush has already tried several plans in Iraq, so Plan B now is really more like Plan J. Also leave aside the question of who or what will categorically decide that this latest plan has failed. I mean, would Bush or Cheney ever state it has failed?Given how Bush's previous plans in Iraq have failed -- and given his continued insistence that failure is "not an option" lest Iraq become a safe haven for terrorists -- it would have been entirely appropriate for the press corps to repeatedly, if not incessantly, demand answers to those two critical questions.
That didn't happen. And after a while, the stunning illogic of there being no apparent Plan B and no credible leverage with the Iraqis became just another inexplicable and yet almost entirely unmentioned part of the backstory.
But to fight a war with no alternative scenarios or game plans at the ready is insane. Such stubborn short-sightedness contributed to what doomed the British in the Revolutionary War. Their insistence on sticking with tradition and what they knew, attacking in straight-line, row-like formation, made it easy for them to be shot like ducks in a barrel. No flexibility, no Plan B, just certain death.
It's also equivalent to a football team coming into the game with a detailed plan, and at some point in the first quarter realizing it wasn't going to work. The successful teams quickly make adjustments. The bad ones I suppose end up behaving like this current administration.
Conservative pundit Andrew Sullivan frets, "My fear is that Bush has not thought this through. There is no plan B because his rigid, incurious mind doesn’t have the dexterity to entertain it. The fundamentalist psyche doesn’t like paradox or nuance."
Yes, Bush is conservative -- insofar as conserving brain cells.
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