Criticize Bush

Sullivan's been one of the loudest and most compelling critics of the Bush administration's handling of Iraq - mostly becaues he's sensible enough to understand the problem with Iraq and with Islamic terrorism - and at the same time has no tolerance the Bush Adminstration's sloppiness and handling of the torture issue. In fact, he lambasts Bush's torture speech right here. Ouch.

But he's running into the same problem we all face - what to do instead? Here, he openly advocates sending MORE troops into Iraq to pacify the country, which seems to be an odd position if you believe Iraq to be a failure.

The big question for the pro-war, but hate how it's been handled crowd, is what happens if we send more troops and Iraq still isn't pacified? How do we measure success and failure? It's the same damn issue facing the Bush administration. I understand the tactical change, but don't see how anyone can know for sure if it'll work - or at the very least, work better than the current situation.

If the argument against Iraq has to do with lives and with money, how does putting more lives and more money at risk make any sense?

Maybe going back a step is required. Maybe we need to once again reevaluate the challenges we face as a nation, because for the past 10-15 years it hasn't really been clear. Iraq has turned out more difficult and for different reasons than anyone expected. We should all admit that it's a damn tricky time period.

Say we commit more troops and Iraq is still a mess. Say we committed more troops three years ago and Iraq was still a mess. Would that be Bush's fault to? Would Bush be to blame for things he didn't even do? Of course. He's the president.