On Tuesday, August 16, the international relations experts at the Review-Journal penned an editorial called "Re-appraising our goals in Iraq." Let's review the points they made:
Paragraph 1: People who say the Bush Administration lied about Iraq's having nuclear, chemical or biological weapons "only harm their own credibility."
(Persuasion technique: If accused of lacking credibility, say the following: "Right back at ya!")
Paragraph 2: After all, other countries got duped about Iraqi WMDs, too. But that's not the point. The point is this: Why is it acceptable for "France, Red China, Ukraine, and probably Israel" to have nuclear weapons but not for Iraq and Iran?
(Persuasion technique: If in doubt, change the subject.)
(Inconvenient fact: Ukraine is not a nuclear nation, having gotten rid of its Soviet-era nukes in the 1990s. Some decommissioned weapons have gone unaccounted for, and the Ukrainian government is scrambling to find them.)
Paragraph 3: Let's have a "forthright public discussion" on why this is so.
(Reasonable response: Well, OK.)
Paragraph 4: "A more reasonable and nuanced opposition might be useful today in facilitating a calmer discussion of how long America should keep troops in Iraq."
(Persuasion technique: Co-opt the word "nuanced," or perhaps acquire it in exchange for "robust.")
(Reasonable doubt: Will this discussion be facilitated by our forthright public discussion of Ukrainian nukes?)
Paragraphs 5-6: Iraq is turning into an Islamic Republic. Some women may wind up with "fewer legal rights, on paper" than under Saddam.
(Persuasion technique: "We're not sure what we're getting at here, but we wanted you to know that we care about women.")
(Valid rejoinder: What was the value of "legal rights, on paper" under Saddam?)
Paragraph 7: What will Americans think of that, when they've been told we're fighting for democracy?
(Flashback: See "Paragraph 1," above.)
Paragraphs 8-9: "American officials have ... been shocked" to learn that Kurds and Shiites are interested in autonomy. They shouldn't be. The British drew the map of the modern-day Middle East, and it took guys like Saddam to keep it from falling apart. So maybe Iraq should be permitted to break up.
(Persuasion technique: "None. We just wanted to show you that we read Wikipedia.")
(Nagging question: The Kurds have been semiautonomous since 1991. The Shiites attempted an uprising that year, and 300,000 were slaughtered by Saddam's overwhelmingly Sunni forces. Who exactly are these "shocked" American officials"?)
Paragraph 10: Anyone notice that there are a lot of cars driving around Iraq with tanks full of "cheap, subsidized gas"? Hey! Gas is expensive over here!
(Persuasion technique: If in doubt, talk about gas.)
Paragraph 11: Barbers are being killed for shaving men in Iraq. We probably won't defeat the insurgency.
(Valid rejoinder: Oh, shit!)
Paragraph 12: The "underlying reason" for fighting in Iraq is to fight "a hate-filled fanatic enemy there instead of here." The war in Iraq is our response to September 11.
(Persuasion technique: It worked for the president.)
Paragraph 13: Let's stop talking about the past and figure out how to win this thing!
(Valid rejoinder: Is it time for our forthright discussion of Ukrainian nukes?)