Training

What Harold Meyerson said:

One of the mysteries of the current discussion of how best to get out of Iraq is that so many otherwise clear-eyed critics of administration policy say we should withdraw our combat troops but leave units behind to train Iraqi forces. As rational policy, it's vastly preferable to leaving combat forces there as well, but it leaves unanswered the question of which Iraqi forces, exactly, we should train. Those of the current Shiite-dominated Nouri al-Maliki government, which has employed Shiite forces to terrorize Sunni areas? What exactly would we train these forces to do? Be more tolerant of the Sunnis? Would that we could, and would that we could train Sunnis to be more tolerant of the Shiites, but these are matters not subject to training.

I think there's a kind of remarkable derangement among the sort of people -- in both parties -- who imagine themselves running the country's foreign policy that makes it impossible for them to ever just admit that situations arise where the United States can't be involved in a useful way. It's vanity, maybe, or just timidity -- perhaps a desire to distance oneself from the damn dirty hippies -- but while this is merely an annoying trait in a opposition party, it's going to be potentially deadly if the Democrats actually find themselves in the White House.