Exit is Not an Option
From a press conference by "Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and the Kuwaiti Foreign Minister Sheik Dr. Mohammed Sabah Al-Sabah, After Their Meeting, May 19, 2005, Washington, D.C.":
QUESTION: Madame Secretary, in the New York Times today, there's an article that senior military leaders, both at the Pentagon and in Iraq, are claiming that it is possible that the U.S. mission in Iraq could fail. […]
Do you have any comment or reaction to that, please?
SECRETARY RICE: Well, I'll only say that I believe the President has always said that his strategy is a strategy for success. He doesn't have an exit strategy; he has a success strategy. […]
Personally, I feel so much better knowing that the president eschews mere thoughts of "exit" to focus on "success". No Iraqi Left Behind and all that.
Does one suppose that "catastrophe" (as in "catostrophic success") is an essential early stage of a "strategy for success"? As part of the "No Iraqi Left Behind" approach, do we have a set of metrics to measure our success, or should we simply rely on indicators like how much money we're spending for success (slightly under $8 Million/hour)? Even if we don't plan to exit — a logical implication of having no "exit strategy", no? — how will we know when we've finished succeeding, and what will we do then when we don't exit?
If I was amazed before with Secretary Rice's intellectual prowess, I'm overwhelmed now.