Think tank deems Bush terror 'plan' clear as mud

No surprise here. The US Army War College published an assessment of Bush's "strategy" and found it lacks finds it lacks clarity, saying it has "failed to define its overall aims." That much is certainly clear, but its conclusions leave much to be desired.

US leaders face a stark choice, the assessment warns, and they have to make it soon. If they decide that the near elimination of Al Qaeda and its followers is the ultimate goal, they must redouble the American commitment to nation building in Iraq and face the prospect that the United States will have to take on other regimes in the Islamic world that have helped spawn the Islamist movement. The study says the resources being expended for nation building in the Middle East are simply not enough to achieve such a goal.

The other option is to retrench from the ambitious goal of bringing democracy to the Middle East, and instead pursue a policy of "containment" relying on greater diplomacy. Such a strategy would include expanding efforts in the former Soviet Union and elsewhere to control nuclear, chemical, and biological materials -- limiting their availability for terrorists -- and seeking more cooperation from some of the same undemocratic regimes that helped spawn Al Qaeda's brand of religious extremism.

...The first could exact a heavy cost in the next decade but could bring long-term security by removing many of the breeding grounds for terrorism. The containment policy, on the other hand, would cost less in the short term but probably not solve the problem over the longer term, effectively leaving in place what Biddle terms the "wellspring" of Islamic terrorism -- the dictatorships of Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Syria, and others.

Note the use of the phrase - could bring. Who gave us a license to export democracy by force anyway? I must have missed the ceremony when the world leaders appointed us as the world's conscience. Or did the new Pope anoint Bush as arbitrator of what's good for the world while I wasn't watching?

We've already spent well over 300 billion to transform Iraq from an admittedly imperfect but viable country into a quagmire of death, destruction and unremitting violence. It seems unlikely that the populace in these other "wellspring" countries will look at the conditions in Iraq and welcome us in as "liberators," particularly since they're showing up in the streets even as you read this, to protest US policy in Iraq.

And just where do these do these "think tank" guys expect us to find the money to finance this nation building anyway? Should we just empty out Fort Knox, the Social Security trust fund and send all our current tax dollars directly to the Middle East? Maybe they should keep thinking.