It's tricky, since there isn't any objective we've actually accomplished in Iraq, but we might still use the Aiken strategy to get us the hell out

"Exasperated members of his party often called him a communist. Vermonters, in their contrarian way, paid these comments little heed, showing Aiken such respect and affection that he reportedly spent only $17.09 on his last reelection bid."
--Wikipedia on former Vermont Sen. George D. Aiken (1892-1984)

George Aiken was a heckuva guy and a heckuva senator, back in the days before "heckuva" was twisted into a term of derision. Oh yes, he was also a Republican, back in the days before pretty much the same people turned that into a term of derision.

Aiken probably was and assuredly is best known for the suggestion, made in the thick of the Vietnam war, that the U.S. declare victory there and withdraw. This was widely misunderstood to mean that we would simply say, "We win." In fact, what he was saying was that, insofar as we had any declared objective in Vietnam, it was to stop the North Vietnamese advance on the South and enable the South Vietnamese to defend their own sovereignty. We had achieved that objective, Aiken was saying, and it was now up to the South Vietnamese.

Of course, the North Vietnamese did eventually overrun the South, but that was after all those additional years of fighting and anguish, destruction and death. Aiken's point remained valid: Unless we were prepared to define our objective as remaining permanently in Vietnam to prevent a Communist takeover, there really was nothing more we could do.

I'm sure you can guess what's gotten me thinking about George Aiken. Central to the nightmare in Iraq is that we've never had a declared objective there. In part, I've always believed, this is because we never had "an" objective. From the start, the motley assortment of extremist thugs and psychopaths who hold power in the Bush regime did agree that invading Iraq and ousting Saddam Hussein would be a jolly thing to do, but there were always factions with wildly different, in some ways contradictory reasons.

I guess they figured they would sort that out later, after we strolled into Baghdad and installed our puppet Chalabi to the cheers of Iraqis happily chanting, "U.S.A.! U.S.A.! U.S.A.!" Meanwhile it didn't bother them that they couldn't explain to anyone else--the American public or the world community, to pick two random examples--why we had the right let alone the obligation to oust our former pal Saddam militarily and unitarily. The attempts to explain were always cover stories, which is why they changed so frequently. If you're, say, Dick Cheney, you don't a flying falafel about the opinions of no-account slugs like the American people or the world community. You just say whatever you have to say in order to do the job you know you have to do.

This morning I found myself listening to NPR. (It's a long story, fanning out from the grim reality that in New York, if you're lucky enough to be able to tune in the station that's supposed to be our Air America Radio affiliate, you wake up to the unspeakable right-wing con artist Army Williams and his even creepier sidekick Sammy). They had a feature today--did I hear correctly that it's the start of a series?--detailing how the big winner from our adventure in Iraq is, of course, our great Satanic enemy Iran.

Which just drives home that, whatever our objectives were supposed to be in Iraq, we've not only failed at all of them, but failed at objectives nobody ever told us we had. I mean, I don't think "strengthening Iran" was ever on the official list.

In some sense this may also be an answer to the seemingly sensible point that we can't just up and leave Iraq. Having created this unholy mess, through a national effort of bungling thuggery perhaps unmatched since Germany's National Socialists installed their 1000-Year Empire, we have to . . . uh . . . to, er . . . to, you know. do something to prevent the godawful catastrophe we've set in motion. Even though the record tends to indicate that all the Bush regime is capable of doing is upping the scale of the catastrophe. At this point, I wonder if even a sane and honest administration could do any better.

(Of course one thing that a sane and honest American government could do would be to immediately internationalize the solution as well as the problem, doing whatever is necesssary to involve the very world community that the Bush regime has treated with such scorn and contempt.)

So it would appear that the Aiken solution isn't available for Iraq. With one exception, we have failed at all the storylines that have been offered as our "objective" in Iraq. Even the exception, the removal of Saddam Hussein from power, is problematic, since it was usually stated as the more dignified-sounding "regime change," and while the former Iraqi regime has unquestionably been removed, is it accurate to say that any real sort of regime has been put in its place? In addition, if we say now that ousting Saddam was our objective, how do we explain the years, and the attendant cost and carnage, since that was accomplished? (We also invite closer examination of the question whether Iraqis are better off liberated from the unquestioned tyranny of Saddam.)

Fortunately, I believe the Aiken strategy can still be made to work. The Bush regime, after all, spurns affiliation, not just with the world community, but with the "reality-based" community. The truth, they clearly believe, is for suckers--and maybe the French. Chimpy the Prez, after all, has been declaring victory ever since we invaded Iraq. "Big Dick" Cheney often seems unaware that our Iraq "policy" (whatever the hell it is) has suffered any setbacks at all.

If ever we wanted people in high places capable of getting up and saying with a straight face, "All our policy objectives in Iraq have been accomplished, and therefore we are beginning an immediate withdrawal of all U.S. forces," we've got them now.

Footnote: By the way, when George Aiken retired from the Senate in 1975, after 34 years, he was succeeded by a Vermonter named Patrick Leahy.


AFTERTHOUGHT: SENATOR COLLINS, DO YOU EVER WORRY THAT
THIS IS THE STANDARD TO WHICH MAINE VOTERS WILL HOLD YOU?

Do you get the feeling that George Aiken's name is just about the last that a currently embattled New England Republican senator, Maine's Susan Collins, wants to hear now? Unless it's that of a more recent Vermont Republican senator, Jim Jeffords, who stared hard into the dark heart of the Bush regime and said no, I don't think I can be part of that. Or even Maine's own legend, the famously independent Republican Sen. Margaret Chase Smith--who lost her 1972 reelection bid in part over her support for the Vietnam war.