  The Abbott & Costello of neocons, Kagan and Kristol, chime in with their solution to the untenable situation in Iraq - urlLink earlier elections . September '04 instead of January '05. This way, the natives will be revolting against the beauty of democracy, instead of the evil of American occupation. Among the biggest mistakes made by the Bush administration over the past year has been the failure to move Iraq more rapidly toward elections. It's true that many, inside and outside the administration, have long been clamoring to hand over more responsibility to Iraqis, responsibility above all for doing more of the fighting and dying. But the one thing even many of these friends of Iraq have been unwilling to hand over to Iraqis is the right to choose their own government.
This is a mistake. Among the biggest mistakes? No doubt there are a litany of big mistakes the Bush administration has made so far but I don't think foisting elections on an unprepared country is the answer to our problems. That said, the dynamic duo make some salient points. We strongly doubt that the announcement of a new interim government--three to four weeks from now, to take office almost two months from now--will have sufficient impact on Iraqi public opinion to overcome the images of American soldiers abusing Iraqi prisoners. Nor do we believe the present course will give the American people and their representatives sufficient reason to hope that a corner may be turned in the near future. Agreed but neither would a debacle of an election that would only lead to radicalizing tribal factions that can't even be controlled now. The realization that their power and influence will soon be diminished will only lead to greater outbreaks of violence and resistance.
We are unable to control the country now, if things were to reach a wider boiling point we would loose total control of the situation. In addition to setting a new date for elections, the administration would have to do a couple of other things. It would have to increase, substantially, the number of troops in Iraq in order to create a more secure environment for elections. Rep. John Murtha has been attacked by Republicans for insisting that we are unlikely to succeed in Iraq without a big increase in the number of troops. These attacks on Murtha are stupid, because he is absolutely right. The Pentagon continues to fiddle while Iraq burns. Everyone in Iraq with whom we talk bemoans the shortage of troops and equipment. It is now impossible to travel safely throughout most of Iraq. This is terrible news, and would be even if we weren't preparing for an election. But if elections are announced, the Pentagon could be forced to overcome its arrogant stubbornness and beef up the force.
More troops are needed regardless. I'm not entirely sure why but our military capability seems to be stretched awfully thin with just 135,000 troops in Iraq and about a tenth as many in Afghanistan. National Guardsmen are being held long past their tour of duty and the idea of reinstating "the draft" is starting to be bandied about by some of our esteemed legislators.
Regardless, experienced troops are needed to help stabilize the country so that when we do hand over the country to a democratically elected government, they have a real honest chance of succeeding. Not some hot potato hand-off so that we can cut our losses and pull out with some dignity, though after the ever-widening prisoner abuse scandal, the idea that we could salvage any sort of dignity or pride out of this operation has all but vanished. As we say, this proposal is not a cure-all. It carries its own risks as well as benefits. If someone has a better idea, we're happy to hear it. But if the administration does not take dramatic action now, it may be unable to avoid failure. Indeed, this is certainly no cure all. In fact, I think it is yet another bad idea in what has been a string of bad ideas from the neoconservative elements in and around The Beltway. I do agree with Frick & Frack in one decisive way - if the administration doesn't take dramatic action right now , it will be unable to avoid the failure that is already staring us right in the face. That won't make any of us safer, which is what this was supposedly all about in the first place. 
