Kristol: I Fear Political Support For Iraq ‘Will Crumble…Among Republicans’ In Next 3 Months
Kristol: I Fear Political Support For Iraq ‘Will Crumble…Among Republicans’ In Next 3 Months
This morning on Fox New Sunday, Bill Kristol said that that the current Iraq strategy of “Iraqification” is “failing” and has been “discredited.” Noting that CentCom commander Gen. John Abizaid said he finds “despair” about Iraq when he comes to Washington, Kristol said he was “very worried” that if conditions in Iraq did not improve within 2 to 3 months, “political support will crumble not among Democrats, but among Republicans. Gone.” Watch it:
Full transcript:
KRISTOL: On the first point, this has been Abizaid and Casey’s theory, Iraqification comes ahead of victory. The only way to win, to be fair to put it, is Iraqification. I think that’s false. We’re failing at Iraqification because there’s no confidence that we’ll be there to help the Iraqis who are with us. I think that theory is not crazy, but it’s been discredited.
It’s time for more troops. Are there more troops? There are. It would be a strain on the army. You could do 20,000 in the short-term. You could do up to 50,000 over 4 to 6 months. It will require a lot of strain and extending deployments and taking people out of Okinawa and bringing them into Iraq and stressing our commitments elsewhere. We need to rebuild the military at the same time. But look, Abizaid’s job, he’s not chief of staff of the army. He is a combatant commander. He is commander of CentCom. Casey is the field commander. Their responsibility is to win the war, and in my view, they’ve talked themselves into the notion that their responsibility is to Iraqify the war. We can afford to win this war.
When Abizaid said he comes to Washington and feels despair, that’s a big problem. If by the State of the Union, I agree with Brit, things aren’t getting better on the ground or there’s not a really plausible change of tactics here at home, I am very worried that political support will crumble not among Democrats, but among Republicans. Gone.
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Poor little Neocon, dying on the vine…
November 19th, 2006 at 11:34 amWe’re failing at Iraqification…
WTF?
Shut the hell up, Kristol, just shut up.
November 19th, 2006 at 11:38 amGood one Zooey, I agree……Blessings
November 19th, 2006 at 11:44 amBill Kristol is the founder of the Project for a New American Century…the PNAC group that planned and orchestrated the wars in both Afghanistan an Iraq.
The rats are all now abandoning the ship that they, themselves sunk. Kristol – like Bush and Cheney and Rummy and others – will get away with the murder of hundreds of thousands of people, including American and coaliktion forces in their greedy, illegal, and immoral war.
Kristol is NEVER identified as PNAC’s founder…or even member. Learn something more about this evil man:
HERE
http://www.tvnewslies.org/html/kristol_clear.html
November 19th, 2006 at 11:45 amOh pooor little kristol wussy girl.
are you sad your big commander n cheef wont be a hero ?
oh have a good cry lil baby…
and say hello to a dem president for the next 8 years…
enjoy exile loser…
November 19th, 2006 at 11:47 amWill someone please throw another pie in this idiot’s face? Support among the GOP has been crumbling for months. The elephants are shambling away one at a time and their final trumpeted bellows translate to, “So long and thanks for all the peanuts.”
I have Frank Rich’s newest up. I don’t totally agree with everything he says. It’s undeniable that many Democrats got in because of our dissatisfaction with Bush and Iraq and whether or not he wants to admit it, many of these new Democrats are closer to the center than they are to the left.
November 19th, 2006 at 11:55 amEver notice this guy only appears on FOX?
What exactly are Kristols credentials?
Maybe MA and Kevin can fill us on as to why someone would listen to this Wolfowitz Straussian shill for the military industrial complex.
November 19th, 2006 at 11:57 amOh pooor little kristol wussy girl…
Comment by nycdude
Arrrghhh! Please stop comparing these idiots to girls!
Speaking as a lifelong girl, I find it insulting — TO ME!
I know what you’re getting at, but can you leave the girls out of it?
November 19th, 2006 at 11:58 amPay no attention to this disingenuous and hypocritical scumbag !
November 19th, 2006 at 12:00 pmWhat kind of guy is this Kristol that he fears the war might stop….and the support for it is declining? If he has one of kids there…he will be happy to see it stop. But since these Neocons only participation is to plot,plan and sell the war…they are now fearing it not going according to Natanyahu Manifesto plan … ‘A Clean Break : A New Strategy For Securing The Realm”.
November 19th, 2006 at 12:02 pmOh pooor little kristol coulter ranting sycophant
Comment by nycdude
Better!! =)
November 19th, 2006 at 12:04 pmMichael Leeden gives some insight into this perhaps as he has said the same things. That the war in Iraq will stop the ‘war on terror’
The ‘war on terror’ pretty much being the new cold war is to send Americans scrambling under their desks. Crisis management.
We had 40 years of nukes ready to rain on us from the USSR, which has collapsed and never nuked anyone. And now the crazies need to invent a new enemy to fear and manage the people. They fear that if the war in Iraq is lost so is their fear management and their $$$ non-ending supply of cash to the war machine.
November 19th, 2006 at 12:12 pmOh the crap is flying now! Notice how all these neocons are suddenly distancing themselves and blaming Bush for the disasters wrought since the neocons hae been in power. Well I remember that nothing could have happened without ALL of their help. Bush is not soley to blame. They are nothing but rats smelling a sinking ship and want to sneak their scuttling little butts as far away from the hole that is bringing the most water.
November 19th, 2006 at 12:13 pmAll I know is I used to enjoy his specials with Whoopie Goldberg.
November 19th, 2006 at 12:15 pm#14 lol :)
November 19th, 2006 at 12:17 pmHe should just go back to doing those “specials” with Whoopie.
November 19th, 2006 at 12:17 pmOh pooor little kristol coulter ranting sycophant
Comment by nycdude
Better!! =)
Comment by Zep Tepi
Better. Who knows what’s under that little black dress? :)
November 19th, 2006 at 12:20 pmMaybe if the neo-cons would stop calling their ‘peace operation’ a war. The Iraqi people might see it differently.
It has gone from freeing the people to killing them. From an operation to a victory. We were never supposed to be victorius in Iraq, we were supposed to show them Democracy and not death.
And as we know the 27 pages missing from the 9/11 report implicate Saudi foreigners operating in the United States, Rumsfeld, in his convoluted wisdumb decided that Iraq must be the ones to pay the price for 9/11.
November 19th, 2006 at 12:23 pmI’m scared to even visualize that one. Maybe Kenny from southpark!!
November 19th, 2006 at 12:24 pmI think the era of Bush/neocon imperialism is over. Thank God.
November 19th, 2006 at 12:26 pmto think that this fellow says anything helpful, revealing, lucent, etc…
is a grave mistake. it is afraid of most everything, or it’s earpiece tells it to be.
this is a puppet, a sock puppet. list his handler first and his qualifications.
there are none. poof, back into the closet he goes.
talking about him only makes him want to talk more, and it is a waste of our time
November 19th, 2006 at 12:32 pmThe world can thank Ruppert Murdoch (The Newscorp., Fox News etc) for this monster. Kristol had been Dan Quayle’s staff director when he was VP.
Murdoch and Kristol decided to publish a conservative magazine, “The Weekly Standard” and Kristol was named editor. I don’t know how he can look himself in the mirror to shave or how he sleeps at night for what he shares a great deal of responsiblity for–which is this terrible mess in Iraq.
He is hideous and a monster. Also, the same can be said about Murdoch–he has Tony Blair in his pocket on the other side of the Atlantic.
November 19th, 2006 at 12:35 pmWhat kind of guy is this Kristol that he fears the war might stop?
We had 40 years of nukes ready to rain on us from the USSR, which has collapsed and never nuked anyone. And now the crazies need to invent a new enemy to fear and manage the people. They fear that if the war in Iraq is lost so is their fear management and their $$$ non-ending supply of cash to the war machine.
Comment by Zep Tepi
Good post. There are three kind of people who defend wars. ONe because they own corporations, other because they run corporations and the last one, the bewildered herd. Most of the people is just ignorant. Here.
November 19th, 2006 at 12:38 pmFrom the December 13, 2004 issue: The sounds emanating from the Middle East are the sounds, faint but unmistakable, of the ice cracking.
by William Kristol
No Bill thats your idiotic peace thru war plan cracking, Your promise to free them has become nothing more than a promise to kill them for a victory so the United States may try to retain some geopolitical credibility.
Bush has destroyed that credibility with rendition, unprovoked wars, and up to a 100k deaths for Democracy. It will be decades, if ever, before the US becomes a guiding light. And it will not become a guding light as long as we have neo-con chickenhawks at the helm or as advisors.
Think Tanks such as Kristol and his PNAC are a detriment to our form of governanc and serve to undermine democracy by panderinmg to the wishes, and crazy idiotlology of a few corporate backed whores.
November 19th, 2006 at 12:38 pmI’m scared to even visualize that one. Maybe Kenny from southpark!!
Comment by Zep Tepi
That might make Kenny very happy…
November 19th, 2006 at 12:38 pmOnly a moron would insist upon holding an untenable position – no “plan”, no defined “enemy”, soldiers being caught in the crossfire of a civil war, how does one win anything? That’s precisely why no Repub can define “victory” “winning” or “success”. Never could and never will. It’s all empty rhetoric and a sham.
November 19th, 2006 at 12:41 pmYour own words come back to haunt you Bill.
You have no credibility Bill please leave and never crawl out from under your rock again.
November 19th, 2006 at 12:45 pmSeems to me Kenny dies on almost every show, a trip under that black dress surely would kill him!!!
The fact that Anne doesn’t have a boyfriend only proves that no man has ever survived the experience!!!
Bwaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!
November 19th, 2006 at 12:48 pmI thought coulter was a guy in drag..Yes.? No.? Must be…..Blessings
November 19th, 2006 at 1:02 pmKristol still sticks out a 2 to 3 month window > the Neocons are grasping at straws, because Iraq will never get better only worse. The troops must all be pulled out ASAP!
November 19th, 2006 at 1:03 pmZooey, let’s stop making jokes about Coulter being a man or intersex or whatever. It’s beneath us. She should be criticized for what she says and writes, not ridiculed because she’s not somebody’s idea of what a ‘real” woman looks like. That kind of ad hominem attack is as undignified and puerile as Rush’s mockery of Michael J. Fox.
November 19th, 2006 at 1:32 pmPoliticians of both parties keep bringing military generals in front of the camera and before the eyes of the Americans and keep pounding them to show Americans that the failed war was the problem of the generals. The fact is both parties’ politicians are the guilty ones..They and not the generals who started this war…they are the ones who financed it…they are the ones who used it for political gains and elections. Abizaid or others are not supposed to be the scapegoats of this war. Soldiers don’t make policies..they simply fight to make the policy succeed..but if the policies are flawed..soldiers should not be blamed. Instead of keep bringing these generals and use them as punch bags by the politicians…They better start look where the problems of this war policies began. They should bring Condi Rice instead and ask her where do we go from here?!! The President keep saying that he is leaving it to the generals in Iraq to decide..but generals don’t make the policies…President Truman refused to take general D.MacArthur advice of widening the Korean war…he fired him instead, although he was the most famous general of the US history in the 20th century. Generals are not to be blamed here unless they broke the military law…but not for the policies. Senators trying to shift the blame of their own mess on both side of the isle. McCain kept pressuring Abizaid that another 20,000 would have changed the outcome…but in fact the whole policy of this war needs an immediate overhaul and review to succeed.
November 19th, 2006 at 2:03 pmAll the chickenshit chickenhawks should go over and give relief to the good men and women who are there doing the evil bidding of the chickenshit chickenhawks. If those cowardly bastards could experience their war, they would have a different opinion of it. This bastard is a sorry sob just like the rest…they are all running from their war.
November 19th, 2006 at 2:20 pmThat kind of ad hominem attack is as undignified and puerile as Rush’s mockery of Michael J. Fox.
Comment by Toro
Shit, I guess I’ve been told! I’m going to my room now…
November 19th, 2006 at 2:23 pmZooey > new kind of troll attacks today. We are being too mean to the poor corrupt GOPers in DC they claim, so shame on us > lol. Some ShamRock guy on another thread called me a troll for saying McCain looks like a 80 year old washed out freak.
November 19th, 2006 at 2:34 pmask the fool Abizaid who created the “despair”. The colonial US created the despair of course as an occupying power. Its amazing how the lone “super power” has no creatiive solutions to anything in the Middle East.
November 19th, 2006 at 2:37 pmWhat exactly are Kristols credentials?
His parents are the noted neocon intellectuals Irving Kristol and Gertrude Himmelfarb. That’s about it.
Quite few among the right-wing punditocracy — for example, Jonah Goldberg, John Podhoretz, Tucker Carlson, and Robert Kagan — owe their careers largely to their family names and connections.
November 19th, 2006 at 2:45 pmBill kristol did go on Colbert show and Colbert clobbered him with “So how is the project coming?” Kristol almost choked.
November 19th, 2006 at 3:00 pmZooey > new kind of troll attacks today. We are being too mean to the poor corrupt GOPers in DC they claim, so shame on us > lol.
Comment by Jay Randal
So now we’re just a bunch of big old meanies? They are schoolyard whiners, aren’t they?
November 19th, 2006 at 3:17 pmI agree tarazan….:)
November 19th, 2006 at 3:36 pmWhat is this always with the 3 month timeline. 3 months, 3 months, 3 months— they’ve been saying Iraq is descending into chaos for 2 years now — and in three months this and three months that. Meanwhile people keep dying and the rest of us stand around waiting for the next 3 month milestone. ENOUGH of this BS. Iraq as a country is no more. Saddam was the only thing holding it together. THAT is what these bastards don’t want to admit.
November 19th, 2006 at 3:36 pmLet’s reserve a place on the docket for Kristol at Nuremberg II.
November 19th, 2006 at 4:57 pmOnly a half a Friedman unit to go!
November 19th, 2006 at 6:33 pmKeep this guy Krystol…it’s fun to watch him squirm his way to oblivion…
November 19th, 2006 at 6:37 pmWhen Gen. Abizaid comes to Washington he feels despair,
When 300 million Americans see or hear Krystol they feel physically sick…
November 19th, 2006 at 6:55 pmpompous puffed up pig.
November 19th, 2006 at 7:08 pm#2-thanks for taking the words out of my mouth.
November 19th, 2006 at 7:47 pmZooey! hi.
November 19th, 2006 at 8:03 pmMany people are gonna die in the next Friedman. and the next, etc…
Even more if Bush gets his big new push on.
Then Iran ??? I wonder what the Contracts will look like?
They don’t want the killing to end. It’s just business to them.
November 19th, 2006 at 9:02 pmEvery time I see William Kristol on the tube, I think of Billy Crystal’s character in [i]Mr. Saturday Night[/i], the movie about the Borscht-Belt comedian. Separated at birth, both in looks and intellect. The big difference is that Bill Crystal’s character sensed his own tragedy. William Krisol actually thinks he has anything to say.
November 19th, 2006 at 9:35 pmC- sucker
November 19th, 2006 at 9:43 pmOH MY GOD…Now that Kristol has said it,… the opposite will come to pass.
There is no God
November 19th, 2006 at 11:17 pmI predict we’ll see Dubya’s approval ratings dip below 25% and replace Nixon as the most hated President. When that happens, anything is possible. We might even see the become the first US President to be indicted on war crimes.
November 20th, 2006 at 12:55 amKristol has no credibility on this issue or any other. He has yet to correctly identify any problem or solution to this Iraqi mess. In his mind this venture was right, easy, and good for the whole region. “Hey Bill looks like you’re batting 0 for 3 !” The sooner the American cast jackasses like Kristol to the trashcan of irrelevence the better.
November 20th, 2006 at 9:13 amSupport for Bush on Iraq is already at only 31%. That means that there has already been a considerable crumbling of Republican/conservative support for Bush on Iraq. Here Kristol is reporting a fact already in existence, not making a prediction about the future so, of course, he is right. Duh!
November 20th, 2006 at 9:56 amWow, only half a Friedman Unit before even the Republican cultists are willing to throw in the towel.
November 20th, 2006 at 10:13 amWilliam Kristol is a monster and should be shunned from civilised company.
November 20th, 2006 at 10:21 amHe’s afraid. Very Afraid. We aren’t going to get the oil.
November 20th, 2006 at 11:36 pmKristol is nothing but scum used By Murdoch and Folsex News to spew rightwing propaganda to keep the war and killing going as long as possible for the greedy bastards that line their pockets .They are all cowardly “CHICKEN HAWKS”/ that always say WE can do this and that but never put their wimpy asses on the firing line.
November 21st, 2006 at 1:02 pm