Pentagon Too Reality-Based?
The Bush administration is significantly lowering expectations of what can be achieved in Iraq, recognizing that the United States will have to settle for far less progress than originally envisioned during the transition due to end in four months, according to U.S. officials in Washington and Baghdad.
The United States no longer expects to see a model new democracy, a self-supporting oil industry or a society in which the majority of people are free from serious security or economic challenges, U.S. officials say.
"What we expected to achieve was never realistic given the timetable or what unfolded on the ground," said a senior official involved in policy since the 2003 invasion. "We are in a process of absorbing the factors of the situation we're in and shedding the unreality that dominated at the beginning."
[Robin Wright and Ellen Knickmeyer, "U.S. Lowers Sights On What Can Be Achieved in Iraq", Washington Post, 14 August 2005.]
Your basic problem here, obviously, is that the Pentagon is [still!] far too reality based to win this war. Now, we know that the Bush League believes that, since we are an "empire", we create our own reality, and they'd really prefer not to hear the whining from the small-minded liberals in the reality-based community — it's just so Englightenment.
Thus it comes as quite a surprise to hear a "senior official" talk about "shedding unreality", which by its nature suggests that there is a reality somewhere.*
Here in Washington, DC, I think we're all looking forward to Don's "We Support You" march on 11 September, wondering whether it's going to be more faith-based or more reality-based. Anyone want to start a pool on how many people show up — excluding, of course, those who are paid to do so.
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*However, that reality at the moment doesn't seem to be anywhere near Crawford, Texas. It seems that, for this president, being the top guy doesn't mean anything about responsibility, but instead means you get to eat all the chocolate you want and ride your bike and do all the cool stuff that you never get to do when you have a job and someone else is in charge.