Iraq After Five Years

My main feeling about the Iraq War since before starting the blog is that, after all this time, the arguments over why we're there are all water under the bridge -- we're there, so we darn well better do what we can to win.

It shows the quality of our national leadership that on this fifth anniversary of Operation Iraqi Freedom, we're still bogged down in the same debates from back in the beginning.

Certainly, the Bush administration dug its collective grave with the way it justified and managed the war. The weapons of mass destruction used to get us into the war were old and useless, and mostly already disposed of. The follow-up to the toppling of Saddam Hussein was far too under-planned. The animosity between Sunnis and Shiites that was exploited by insurgents was ignored.

As bad as all that was, it was no justification for us to give up then and certainly no reason to throw in the towel now that we've turned the corner. Sure, there's still violence in Iraq. There always will be. The Surge has worked and it would be treasonous to pull the rug out from our armed forces members who have sacrificed so much to make this operation a success.

Feel free to argue all you like about how we got to Iraq, but leave the debate to the history books. We're on to a whole new phase -- have been for more than a year -- and out national discussion over Iraq policy has to take the new reality into account.

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Future reality is that we're not going anywhere anytime soon. The military will remain in Iraq in force to maintain the fragile "peace" and somehow nurse the government toward reconciliation and providing tangible services to the people. If Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are elected president, they will surely pull some major combat units out of Iraq to satisfy their constituents, but they'll maintain a sizable force, either in country or in neighboring Kuwait. Honestly, troop levels might not be appreciably different whether the Democrats or John McCain wins the election.

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I expected the downturn in the stock market following the Fed interest rate cut to be felt by the end of the week, not Wednesday. Well, the Dow Industrials dropped nearly 300 points, giving back about 3/4 of Tuesday's rally. Look for it to continue for a while.

Obama Speech Reaction, Another Rate Cut

I don't have much to say about Barack Obama's speech on the topic of race in Philadelphia, but considering my comments on this blog about his candidacy this week, I feel a bit obligated to pass along my reaction.

At its best, Obama's speech is a reminder why everyone got so excited about him in the first place. It was an address of soaring oratory with a promise of improved racial unity. At its worst, it fails to answer what got him in trouble the past couple weeks. He tried to take us back to the good times of his candidacy. He made an effort to get us to forget what's transpired in the past two weeks.

The lasting effect could very well be that we like his promise of better times ahead but lament that he ended up being unfit for the presidency.

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Last week, it appeared that the Federal Reserve had figured out that dropping interest rates only offered short-term boosts to the economy at the cost of long-term damage from a weakened dollar.

Fast-forward to this week and the Fed Funds Rate is reduced by 3/4 point to its lowest level since 2004. Sure, the Dow Industrials skyrocket 420 points on the same day, but how long will that last? Will the stock market continue to climb the rest of the week? Will the Dow, a week from Friday, still be north of 12,390? We'll see. Recent history shows the odds are against it.

In fact, the price of a barrel of oil rose on news of the rate cut, which traders will probably use as an excuse to sell off their stock market shares. The oil prices dropped a bit Monday because of prospects of a slowing world economy.

Head spinning? Oh, yeah. I'm no economist, but it seems to me we have to treat the problem instead of the symptom.