The Gamut

I think I know what the Kerry/Edwards secret plan for Iraq is. A few months ago Kerry suggested that his campaign team had a secret plan for getting us out of Iraq. It led to comparisons with Nixon and ridicule from right-wing gas-bags; but I think they actually do have a plan, and I think I have figured out (at least in part) what it is. And it is brilliant.

Also brilliant is what they have done to allow us to figure out the plan. I was thinking about it last night. I was drawn by something John Edwards had said during the debate on Tuesday. He was criticizing Bush and Cheney for not doing enough to make Iraq secure, and Cheney was criticizing them for suggesting that they could get support from our allies after the allies had said that they would not send troops even if Kerry and Edwards were in office. I remembered that Kerry had said that he would double the special forces and add two active duty divisions to the US Army, and that when Iraq was secure, the allies would have no reason not to return. I expected Edwards to repeat the same line, but he didn’t. Instead, he noted that the Iraqi security forces were not being properly trained, and suggested that trying to train them in the middle of the insurgent attacks was part of the problem. "And by the way," he said, "if we need to, we can take Iraqis out of Iraq to train them. It is not secure enough. It's so dangerous on the ground that they can't be trained there. We can take them out of Iraq for purposes of training."

As I thought about this last night, I realized what their plan is, and the brilliant way that they have been leaking the plan a little at a time.

Kerry and Edwards will increase troop strength in Iraq immediately upon taking over the White House. They will then move the Iraqi security forces out of the country - possibly to Kuwait or Saudi Arabia - along with the U.S. civilian training forces. Then it will be easier to both control the insurgency and finish the task of training the Iraqis to take over their own responsibilities as well as being safer for the American contractors which would increase the number of contractors willing to help do the job. Within six months, the turn over would begin, and we could begin pulling American troops out of Iraq. As this happens, and as countries like France and Germany see that we have begun to withdraw, it will be easier to convince them that it is in their own best interest to put a contingent of their own people on the ground in Iraq.

This next part is my own speculation, but I also suspect that we will sweeten the pot by offering rebuilding contracts to German and French (or any other) firms once they have joined the coalition.

I hope that team-Kerry intends to put this plan in the mainstream sometime within the month. It is brilliant the way they have covertly sneaked so much of the plan into the debates, but unless it is spelled out for the electorate, I fear that it will have no effect. After the election, the plan is only useful if we have won. Although as a tool for winning the election, it is only effective so long as Bush and Cheney don’t get the opportunity to create a situation where the plan is inoperable. If I am correct, I understand that this is a kind of Catch-22 for the campaign, and that would be why they have taken this surreptitious route to subliminally place the plan in the mind of voters; but eventually, they will need to spell it out in language that a seventh grader can understand.

By the way, if this wasn’t the plan, why the hell not? It’s genius.

And they’d better do it before the October surprise, or not at all.

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