Hawks Prevail In Preventing U.S. Troop Withdrawal

Hawks Prevail In Preventing U.S. Troop Withdrawal is by Tom Hayden. Missed his talk at Fairfield Univ. on Feb 28. This article states:

The strong possibility that Pentagon commanders might recommend the beginning of American troop withdrawals this week is vanishing, derailed by the Feb. 22 bombing of the Shiite shrine in Samarra as well as the Democratic Party’s default on the war.
We may never know who blew up the shrine and, with it, the prospects for troop withdrawals. It is assumed that the villains were either deranged Sunnis acting on their own, or al-Zarqawi cadres intent on civil war.
There is another perspective for close observers of dirty wars, the possibility that the bombing was planned and handled by elements of Western counter-terrorism forces. Similar tactics were employed by British agents during the long conflict in Northern Ireland, and heavily-armed British commandos disguised as Arabs were captured in Basra just last year. One of the oldest imperial strategems is to divide and conquer, incite sectarian divisions, and justify military occupation to keep the natives from killing each other. This is precisely the justification for continued war that is heard from those who have admitted the original invasion was a “mistake.”
Bernard Lewis, the leading American “Arabist” authority, himself a former British intelligence officer in the Middle East, and later an advisor to the Democratic hawk Senator Henry “Scoop” Jackson, has long defended the strategy of dismembering Arab states through violent sectarianism. He calls it “Lebanonization.”

So the prospect of pullout seems dim, the possibility of our involvement in the bomb is frightening but possible. Are there any rays of hope?

All this is somewhat disorienting for an American peace movement built around the core demand of “out now”. But after three years, the movement continues to make a major contribution, here and abroad, in putting pressure against the key pillars of power. Public opinion supports withdrawal. Thousands of activists continue taking to the streets. Hawkish candidates face huge pressure as they face their constituents. Bush may be facing his “Watergate moment.” Military recruiting is nearing a catastrophic dead-end, and a decision to deploy, rather than reduce, several Army combat brigades will “destroy the all-volunteer Army”, in the words of the CAP report. The “coalition of the willing” has a sagging façade. Establishment heavyweights, not to mention ordinary taxpayers and their congressional representatives, are pondering the trillion-dollar cost of the war recently projected by leading economist Joseph Stiglitz and a team at Harvard.
Anything may happen. The power of the superpower is limited and at-risk. But for now it appears that the long war will continue to the bitter end. An exit strategy is available, but the policy remains no exit.

But policies can change - or at least be made to change.