Kissinger: Iraq Military Win Impossible

From the Washington Post courtesy of AlterNet:

"If you mean by 'military victory' an Iraqi government that can be established and whose writ runs across the whole country, that gets the civil war under control and sectarian violence under control in a time period that the political processes of the democracies will support, I don't believe that is possible," he told the British Broadcasting Corp.

And

Kissinger, whose views have been sought by the Iraqi Study Group, led by former Secretary of State James Baker III, called for an international conference bringing together the permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, Iraq's neighbors _ including Iran _ and regional powers like India and Pakistan to work out a way forward for the region.

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Wow. This is pretty big, if only because the Washington establishment, both Democrats and Republicans, and the mainstream media punditocracy, all tongue-kiss the bespectalcled one's butt when it comes to foreign policy and international security issues. Further, I'm quite astounded because Kissinger is all about continuing to fight doomed wars in order to maintain "credibility" with enemies, which supposedly provides some kind of nebulous deterrent effect in the future. I mean, I've known that these Kissinger theories are full of shit for some months now, myself, but for him to decide that Iraq is unwinnable is likely to greatly diminish voices within the White House that continue to demand more war.

And his call for bringing in the UN and local Islamic players is what I've been saying since it became clear that the US can't handle it alone. You know, we just might be able to pull this off. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

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