Not to say Bush's speech was of that high caliber, or Kaplan's parsing that low. But reading his piece, it really struck me: Bush's speech was nonsense. Kaplan--and every other pundit in the US--is desperately trying to find a single shred of meaning to hang onto.
This is further evidence that no one is in charge! They can only fake it as they go along! :scared:
http://www.slate.com/id/2131262/First, though the document is called a "strategy for victory," Bush doesn't clearly define either term. And even where he defines the terms nebulously or inconsistently, he doesn't tie them to the more pressing questions now consuming public discussion of the war: What do we do now? When can we start to pull out—under what circumstances, with what sorts of troops remaining, to what end, for how long?
In the speech, Bush says (as he has said many times before), "We will stay as long as necessary to complete the mission." But what is the mission? At one point he says, "When our mission of training the Iraqi security forces is complete, our troops will return home to a proud nation." However, a bit later, he says the mission will be complete "when the terrorists and Saddamists can no longer threaten Iraq's democracy," and he adds, "I will settle for nothing less than complete victory."
So, which is it: Our job is done when the Iraqis can fight the bad guys on their own—or when the bad guys are defeated? Those are two very different standards, involving very different benchmarks of progress.
As was widely reported ahead of time, Bush focused much of his speech on, as he put it, "the real progress" made this year in training Iraqi soldiers and police. Many observers—including this one—inferred from this that the speech would mark a prelude to (if not an announcement of) a substantial American troop withdrawal. After all, the president has said many times, "As the Iraqis stand up, we will stand down." Here they are, suddenly standing up; therefore …