Stay The Course
By streiff Posted in Archived — Comments (4) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
The Bush Administation has been pilloried in some sectors for using the phrase "stay the course" to encapsulate its Iraq strategy. So much so that they have actually forbidden the term to be used.
The most common critique is that the phrase is mere sloganeering and doesn't constitute a strategy. This is ridiculous on its face .
For those interested in, or capable of, reading there is a wealth of material on the Defense and White House website that spell out our strategy in Iraq. Now one may not like what they read and may not think it is workable but to say there isn't a strategy, or that the strategy is "stay the course," simply marks one as having a casual disregard for the truth and therefore a fairly shameful excuse for an adult.
"Stay the course" was nothing more or less than what the Administration was and, indeed is, asking of the American people: stay with the existing strategy until it has time to succeed.
The left, and increasingly a body of initial supporters of the war who have gone wobbly when confronted with the inherent difficulties in bringing your enemies to heel, seem to believe a change in strategy is necessary. The former in order to make a few cheap political points by proving the Bush Administration wrong, the latter to attempt to salvage what they see as their tattered reputation in supporting the war to begin with.
This type of thinking is the same thinking that has driven American industry into the ground. The idea that each successive quarter must show a profit has driven US steel and automakers from their former pinnacle in their respective industry and had them supplanted by strategically thinking companies who were willing to accept marginal returns or even losses in order to carry out their strategic plan. To "stay the course" and not change course with the vagaries of the wind and tide is the mark of successful men, successful businesses, and successful governments.
One can't help but note that Washington didn't change strategy during the Revolution. That the Anaconda Plan, the US strategy for defeating the Confederacy, was adhered to despite the lack of success for a year and a half. Roosevelt and Churchill agreed to take on Nazi Germany first and they held to that strategy despite the fall of Singapore, Malaya, and the Philippines and starved the Pacific theater of men and materiel in order to support the invasion of North Africa and later of continental Europe.
Staying the course is only viable, of course, if the underlying strategy is valid. To date, no Dem has bothered to produce an Iraq strategy that will not fit on a bumper sticker so we really don't know if they have a better idea.
It seems to me that any strategy for success in Iraq must involve the building of Iraqi security forces and using those forces in conjunction with US troops to give the Iraqi government the opportunity to build civil instituions. Institutions that simply did not exist in 2003.
Both developing security forces to a level of self sufficient competency and cultivating the growth of civil society will take time.
In the light of that "stay the course" seems to be the way to proceed.
to find examples of successful strategies being derived from polling of "independents."
Adjusting a strategy to win a few votes seems, at least to me, a craven capitulation of leadership.
Flexibility in adjusting to conditions on the ground in Iraq has been a hallmark of the mission. For anyone who cares to honestly investigate the military and diplomatic textual history it is overtly apparent. The primary issue is the consistent attempt by liberals and their anti-war counterparts to semantically corrupt slogans meant to help explain the policy. I find that specious since one of the initial criticisms was a lack explanation to the public. Once that provision commenced, the explanations were then attacked. Who did that posture help and what alternatives were provided by Democrats; withdraw and attack the messenger. To date, their party has presented nothing except this unacceptable alternative and some quizzical paraphrasing of existing policy.
As this administration stepped up the effort to explain our policy to the citizenry, those in opposition highlighted issues meant to provoke mention rather than understanding. Therein lays a primary issue with Democrats and the anti war left. Their appeal to emotion instead of intellect reveals a motive not truthfully explanatory or based on articulateness. It is routed in emotional response springing from a philosophy so divergent and oppositional it can not be intellectually rationalized.
The populace in our country is very conditioned to the sixty second news bite. Many unfortunately use that a primary source to make emotional decisions on Iraq. Hence, much of the opposition to Iraq policy from independent minded people; they just don’t have the time or wherewithal to receive deeper understanding. Proof? I spent the last to weekends with seniors that use the MSM as a primary news source. They believed all the standard, unfounded, baseless rhetoric coming from the left. When an objective and verifiable alternative was presented they were stunned. These people are not dolts; some of them were sharper than many people I know. However, they grew up in a generation that could actually depend somewhat on the MSM. When I introduced them to alternative media, showed them how to navigate sites such as The Whitehouse, Department of State and Department of Defense they were hooked and motivated. Let’s just also say they will vote and many will not be voting the way they thought one month ago.
Does sloganeering work? I don’t know; but corrupting the message and attempting to sell that specious articulation appears to be motivating people in the opposite direction.
"Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori"
Stay the course - how is stay the course a synonym for doing the same thing over and over, or not changing your strategy? Think about a golf course. Is every hole the same? No. And sometimes there are sand traps. Do you leave the course when you get stuck in one? No, you use a different club, try hitting the ball differently, sometimes you even give that ball up for lost and use a new ball, but you stay the course. What you don't do, is pack up your balls and go home!
Not that it doesn't have its merits, but too many Americans believe our lack of recent progress in Iraq shows our strategy isn't going to work in the end. I've read several articles by independents that certainly believe in winning, but who also believe that winning requires a strategic adjustment. Let's not drive them to the Democrats because they think Republicans can't adjust.
If it could be shown our strategy was winning, that'd be great press for us right now. Failing that, let's shift to "Defeat our enemies in Iraq" - something positive that truly differentiates us from the Democratic leadership, and that many independents will gladly support.