TANGLED IN HIS OWN WEB:

Heading for Trouble: Do we really want to occupy Iraq for the next 30 years? (James Webb, September 4, 2002, Washington Post)

America's best military leaders know that they are accountable to history not only for how they fight wars, but also for how they prevent them. The greatest military victory of our time -- bringing an expansionist Soviet Union in from the cold while averting a nuclear holocaust -- was accomplished not by an invasion but through decades of intense maneuvering and continuous operations. With respect to the situation in Iraq, they are conscious of two realities that seem to have been lost in the narrow debate about Saddam Hussein himself. The first reality is that wars often have unintended consequences -- ask the Germans, who in World War I were convinced that they would defeat the French in exactly 42 days. The second is that a long-term occupation of Iraq would beyond doubt require an adjustment of force levels elsewhere, and could eventually diminish American influence in other parts of the world.

Other than the flippant criticisms of our "failure" to take Baghdad during the Persian Gulf War, one sees little discussion of an occupation of Iraq, but it is the key element of the current debate. The issue before us is not simply whether the United States should end the regime of Saddam Hussein, but whether we as a nation are prepared to physically occupy territory in the Middle East for the next 30 to 50 years.

The Brothers have been big fans of Mr. Webb since the Reagan administration, but this is just silly. He first repeats the canard that the Cold War--which lasted fifty years and cost trillions of dollars and tens of millions of lives--was the "greatest military victory of our time", then goes on to show that a rather minor and inexpensive occupation of Iraq would be a disaster. That's not to say that we shouold occupy Iraq--after toppling Saddam we should just leave--but it so self-contradictory on its face as to be difficult to take seriously. Posted by Orrin Judd at September 7, 2002 8:25 AM