You Can’t Have A War Today

“Stop!! You can’t have a war today because it’s Mommy’s birthday!”
- birthday card greeting

The Iraq war dominated the news clutter last night in the wake of Congressional hearings. General Petraeus was anything but clear about where our war strategy goes from here, but in the end he sounded remarkably like the birthday card greeting I got last weekend: he needs a brief time out.

Lawmakers pressed the question of when the U.S. might begin to withdraw troops. Petraeus said that in July he’ll spend 45 days doing “consolidation and evaluation” and then spend an unspecified time looking at the situation in Iraq and then let us know when he might be able to recommend next steps. Doesn’t that mean he refuses to come up with a strategy for troop withdrawal?

Remember the days when “war on terror” was all the buzz? In this news cycle about Iraq the term “terror” pops up only 8% of the time. That’s the same level of news coverage that anti-war protestors got when they disrupted yesterday’s hearings and shouted “Bring them home!”. More dominant in the hearing was the subject of “troop withdrawal”, which was the theme of almost all coverage.

Later this week President Bush is expected to make remarks on the subject. I don’t have high expectations that he will deliver a strategy to end this war. On the other hand, my son declared a week’s moratorium on Bionicle battles in our living room in his attempt to give me “peace” as a birthday present. I will enjoy that small gesture.