As I've mentioned before, I'm a Fellow with the National Security Network, a burgeoning organization committed to progressive policy and politics in foreign policy. And it's things like this that make me so proud to be part of NSN.
Rand Beers, NSN's president, spent 35 years as a civil servant, from his time in the Marines to his last government job, Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Combating Terrorism in the Bush White House. He resigned on the eve of the Iraq war, seeing clearly what so many failed to understand about the tragic foolishness of that endeavor, and has since worked to help correct the failing policies of the current administration. In the wake of false claims of improvement in Iraq this week, Rand wanted to set the record straight, and he does so in a pointed but accessible way.
And where did he correct the misconceptions? As a full-fledged member of the D.C. establishment, one might think it was at a CFR speech, or perhaps an op-ed somewhere, right? But NSN understands where so much of these issues play out, and where people are paying attention and interested in the facts, so Rand posted online at HuffPo.
He lays out the problems with the argument over military progress, clarifying the overall picture in the face of war-supporting obfuscation:
As a young lieutenant [in Vietnam], I was taught that a failing strategy demanded alternatives. Committing one's forces to costly frontal assaults in the Iraqi quagmire is better replaced by a strategy allowing flexibility and economy of force. The time for more time has passed. It's time for Iraq's neighbors to join the political reconciliation process in Iraq or, at minimum, to contain the violence to Iraq. It's time for serious U.S. involvement in the Middle East Peace Process. And it's time to focus on the real Al Qaeda along the Pak-Afghan border. But only beginning the U.S. disengagement from Iraq will allow such alternatives to prosper.Precisely.
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