Prominent Republican urges new Iraq strategy

[CommunityEditor]

A key Republican senator warned Monday night that the Bush administration’s current Iraq strategy has little chance of working and could be putting the nation at risk.

Warning that the U.S. military is close to the breaking point, he urged a “more sustainable” Iraq policy that involves fewer troops and more diplomatic and economic options.

Sen. Richard Lugar of Indiana, the former chairman and now ranking Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has stuck with the Bush administration even as other Republicans have distanced themselves on Iraq. In January, when the new Democrat-led Congress was working on legislation opposed to the surge of combat troops, Lugar voted with the administration, warning that opposition would leave allies and adversaries believing the U.S. policy was in “disarray.”

“Unless we recalibrate our strategy in Iraq to fit our domestic political conditions and the broader needs of U.S. national security, we risk foreign policy failures that could greatly diminish our influence in the region and the world.” Lugar said in the late-night speech on the Senate floor.

“A course change should happen now,” Lugar said, “while there is still some possibility of construction a sustainable bipartisan strategy.”

“Three factors — the political fragmentation in Iraq, the growing stress on our military and the constraints of our own domestic political process — are converging to make it almost impossible for the United States to engineer a stable, multi-sectarian government in Iraq in a reasonable time frame,” Lugar said.

“In my judgment, our course in Iraq has lost contact with our vital national security interests in the Middle East and beyond,” Lugar said. “The prospects that the current surge strategy will succeed in the way originally envisioned by the president are very limited within the short period framed by our own domestic political debate. And, the strident polarized nature of that debate increases the risk that our involvement in Iraq will end in a poorly planned withdrawal that undercuts our vital interests in the Middle East.”

Lugar said the surge, with a burst of U.S. combat forces trying to reduce violence to the point that Iraqi military and security forces that take over the mission of security, isn’t likely to work fast enough for the political process. “Americans want results in months,” he said.


Article: http://www.militarytimes.com/news/20...speech_070625/

[Blast]

Lugar has made some really strong points and maybe now the Administration will review the policy with fresh eyes.

[The Universal Curmudgeon_guest]

Originally Posted by CommunityEditor

“In my judgment, our course in Iraq has lost contact with our vital national security interests in the Middle East and beyond,” Lugar said.

Maybe someone should tell the good Senator that you cannot "lose" what you never had in the first place.