First Rich Lowry writes under the heading, “Thought Experiment”:

Someone was just making a good point to me. What would Gen. Casey's reaction be if he had a commander who was losing a battle, so he decided to add a tiny increment to his force. Then he kept on losing, so added another tiny increment. And so on. He would probably relieve him. But this is exactly what Gen. Casey himself is doing in the Battle for Baghdad.

A little over an hour later, Andy McCarthy responds:

Rich, what if Gen. Casey was taking his orders from civilian leadership that denied there was a war going on between Israel and Hezbollah this summer when there was a raging war going on between Israel and Hezbollah?

What if he knew that our enemies were being directed and abetted by Iran – which was also steering Hezbollah during the aforementioned not-a-war against Israel – but the said civilian leadership was not letting him do anything about that?

What if he knew that Iran was supplying munitions and killing his troops in Iraq, but his civilian leadership – while telling the country that rogue nations had a choice either to be “with us or with the terrorists” – was actually offering Iran economic assistance, aeronautics assistance, telecommunications assistance, agricultural assistance, and all manner or assistance under the sun if Iran would only please, please pretend to stop building nukes?

What if Iran not only laughed off that offer, but continued to help kill Gen. Casey’s troops in Iraq while continuing to harbor al Qaeda leaders (including Osama bin Laden’s sons)?

What if while all that was going on, Iran promised to obliterate Israel and to conduct blistering attacks in and against the United States, and the civilian leadership still evinced no interest in doing anything meaningful against Iran?

How much should we then blame Gen. Casey for the Battle of Baghdad when his civilian leadership has no stomach for dealing with the enemy behind the Battle of Baghdad?

I love Rich, but Andy nails it. The decisions that have killed us in this war have been wretched political ones. We could put a zillion troops in the Anbar province and Baghdad, but without some willpower from our civilian leadership, they wouldn’t do a damn bit of good.

With the Baker Commission due to offer its inevitably awful recommendations in six days, it will be up to the president to belatedly stiffen the spine of the American war effort. Let’s hope he does so.

Complaints? Compliments? Contact me at Soxblog@aol.com.