How did he get that job, by the way?
From Time:
To me, the relentless mud slide of insurgency and civil war in Iraq is leading to unacceptable strategic disaster for the U.S. There appear to be no viable paths to follow in order to avoid it. Neither "staying the course"--whatever that Bush strategy now means--nor the Democrats' idea of exiting by timetables offers a semblance of success. Both approaches produce only nightmares: general chaos; Iraq's center taken over by terrorists emboldened by victory over America, their pockets bulging with Iraqi oil money; southern Iraq controlled by pro-Iranians or Iran itself; and Iraq's neighbors picking at the nation's carcass until regional war erupts and prompts oil prices to hit $150 a barrel.
But while those fears have a real hold on me, I can't help transporting myself back more than 30 years to that day in Vietnam when I felt certain the dominoes would fall throughout Asia and destroy America's strategic position there and elsewhere. I was wrong about those dominoes, as were almost all foreign-policy experts.
Dominoes? Does Cambodia come to mind? Laos?
Also, does Leslie remember the Vietnamese boat people? The "re-education" camps? Pol Pot? True, Gelb is discussing the Vietnam and Iraq war from the perspective of U.S. foreign policy, but having millions of jihadists emboldened by a coalition defeat in Iraq would not serve American interests very well.
And should we ignore a possible humanitarian disaster if we just packed up and left Iraq? That's already the case of course in Darfur, of course.
Hey Gelb, I may not have all the degrees you have, but the world is not a game of Risk.
Technorati tags: Iraq War on Terror Vietnam Việt Nam Military Risk
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