A Summertime Brookings Bombshell on Iraq

Wednesday, August 08, 2007

I spent the last two weeks vacationing in the Finger Lakes region of upstate New York and on the Ohio shore of Lake Erie, doing all I could to keep my body in the sand, my face in a book, and my mind away from the worries of the workaday world.

So I'm just catching up with some of the news, and amazed by the source and content of the New York Times op-ed piece "A War We Just Might Win" on July 30 by Michael E. O'Hanlon and Kenneth M. Pollack of Brookings Institution.

(Much of my professional history was working with Prison Fellowship chairman Chuck Colson, who was accused by other Watergate defendants of conspiring or considering the bombing of Brookings Instition as a solution to its criticism of Nixon--or something like that. Colson is famous for quips that get him in trouble. I'm sure the Brookings comments was one of these. Today, I'm sure he's pleased by the report from Brookings).

The O'Hanlon and Pollack report is wonderful news, and it has great credibility because it comes from a think tank that leans left and from writers who have been critical of the war effort.

It would be fabulous for America and the world if they are right, and if the positive military news in Iraq continues. It is inconvenient for politicians and presidential candidates who have based their campaigns on bad war news and the call for withdrawal.

For me, the potential that the good news in Iraq could be enduring is far more important then the political embarassment for the (mostly) Democrats who are relying on failure in the Middle East.

Almost worth returning from vacation to see this good report. Almost.

--Jim Jewell