‘To oppose everything while proposing nothing is irresponsible,’ Bush Said.

Brilliant. I always thought Bush is brilliant. Unlike all his critics, who thought: "Bush is like a rock, only dumber." If you really listen to his words, you will think Bush is brilliant, at least his brain is. By his brain, I don't mean the hazelnut-sized organ in his hollow skull, I meant Karl Rove. The quote must be his idea.

Imagine you just made a gigantic mistake of invading a little country in the Middle East, opening the Pandora box of terrorism, bankrupting the greatest economic in the world, ruining the reputation of the first democracy in the west, handicapping the mightiest empire in history, would you have the guts to stand in a crowd and call other people, "irresponsible"? Bush is not only brilliant, he is courageous.

No wonder 62 million Americans elected him as the President in 2004. Where are they now? According to the poll, only 27% (i.e. 32 million) voting Americans still think he is right. So what happened to the other 30 million Americans?

More dramatic than climate change, more flip-flopping than the flip-flop Kerry, people are attacking the lame-duck Bush government with vicious criticisms. Just years ago, the invasion of Iraq was approved by 75% Americans, but now they all flop to the other side and attack their commander-in-chief. Bush said, "Surge." All the blogs on the Internet responded with the F-word.

And Bush said: ‘To oppose everything while proposing nothing is irresponsible.’ What he meant is: "If you dare to criticize me, you would have to fix the thing I broke."

What a brilliant shift of blame. If you don't agree with his surge, you have to propose a "winning strategy". It's like saying if you don't think this "paper wing" will fly you to the sun, you have to propose a "winning wing" that will fly you to the sun. Sorry, chief, no wing in the world can fly you to the sun.

There's no winning strategy in Iraq. Sure, we can send a million troops to Iraq. That sure would stop the violence. But is that a "winning" strategy? By stabilizing Iraq, we destabilize the US, that's hardly winning in an American's perspective. From day one of the War on Iraq, there's no winning strategy, there's only a strategy to "lose less".

Bang. When reality hits, it hurts. When you decide to jump down the cliff, don't blame the ground is hard. The ground has nothing against you; it's just part of reality. Iraq is a reality. When reality hits, it hits with a Bang.

Here, I'll propose a "losing less" strategy:

Forget about democracy in Iraq. Iraq may become a democracy, but not in the near future and not by Americans. What American can do is to mold Iraq into a quasi-democracy, with a mixed of elected government and a bunch of powerful warlords. Sure, send in the surge. Surge is not a bad idea. The bad idea is to use the "surge" to fight. Don't send the "surge" to fight, at least not to fight everyone.

Who is more suitable to suppress the warlord than the warlords themselves? Help the warlords who cooperate with the Americans, suppress the warlords who don't cooperate. Give them a little political power as a carrot, and threaten them with the powerful stick of the American army. Let the gangsters support the government, and let the American become the lord of gangsters. It will suppress the violence, with a little sacrifice of the democracy. American companies get the oil, Americans get cheaper gas, Iraqi get a bit more democracy than before, better health care, better education, the warlords get their own territory. It's a win-win-win strategy.

The Americans has to remember not everyone is as die-hard as the al-Qaeda, many just want a bit of power, a bit of territory, a bit of wealth. Even Iran and Syria would cooperate, it they are lured with sufficient carrots. Bush has already bankrupted the good name of the Americans. Some quasi-cooperation with the rouge states is not going to harm it any further.