Written by: Anonymous

Rich Lowry on National Review Online is always carping about the problem he has with the term "exit strategy." That's because Rich Lowry is a fairy.

Lowry seems to think that an intervention premised on a particular plan for an exit is a misguided intervention, because the important part of the strategy should be accomplishing the goals of the intervention, rather than simply getting out. Well, I suppose that's true as far as it goes, but it has nothing to do with whether it's prudent to have mapped out a plan for ending the intervention based on certain conditions. Without an exit strategy, there's no strategy at all, because there's no set of defined goals and conditions that can be achieved and therefore no longer necessitate the presence of the American military in a particular country. Without an exit strategy, the intervention becomes bureaucratized and all about process, rather than about achieving specific things that caused the United States to intervene in the first place.

But that's what Lowry and his fellow neocons want. They want to premise an intervention on a defined set of goals and interests they can successfully sell to other conservatives and the American public at large. But then they want to stick around. Forever. Presumably slapping themselves silly and singing songs about Abraham Lincoln while hordes of barbarian morons participate in Kabuki-theater-like "elections" every couple of months. Isn't this basically what's going on in Bosnia and Kosovo right now? I have to admit I long ago lost interest in the daily goings-on in the Balkans, but I know two things for sure -- (1) we aren't leaving anytime soon, and (2) we aren't making things better over there. Talk about failed states.

Anyway, my point is that the neocons like intervening for intervening's sake, and they like sticking around to engage in their quixotic attempts to find the Somali John Adams and print ballots for the Mogadishu School Board. It's idiocy on a grand scale. But it's important because (1) these guys have a pretty big say in the Bush administration, and (2) it's instructive of the true differences between a conservative supporter of the Iraq war and a neocon. We all think it made sense to fight the war, but our perspectives on what to do now differ tremendously.

I want a smart and flexible exit strategy. Rich Lowry wants to participate in a junior high civics project.