So that's the exit strategy!

Joel and I have been speculating that the up-coming exit strategy would soon be announced, and it would read: "Blame the Iraqis"

Check out Charles Krauthammer's "Who's to Blame for the Killing?" in today's (tomorrow's, here) Washington Post.

So, Blame the Iraqis it is.

Krauthammer writes, "Iraqis were given their freedom, and yet many have chosen civil war. Among all these religious prejudices, ancient wounds, social resentments and tribal antagonisms, who gets the blame for the rivers of blood? You can always count on some to find the blame in America."

He continues, "But when Arabs kill Arabs and Shiites kill Shiites and Sunnis kill all in a spasm of violence that is blind and furious and has roots in hatreds born long before America was even a republic, to place the blame on the one player, the one country, the one military that has done more than any other to try to separate the combatants and bring conciliation is simply perverse.

"It infantilizes Arabs. It demonizes Americans. It willfully overlooks the plainest of facts: Iraq is their country. We midwifed their freedom. They chose civil war."

Seriously? Their sticking with "midwifed their freedom"? That tested well? I guess it's supposed to use the connotation of midwifery being a messy process to explain away what I see on my TV, but I'm pretty sure birthing children isn't done with bombs and guns. That's not how they did it at the hospital where my son was born, thankfully, and if that's how the administration plans on manipulating medicine, I'm glad the Dems are not warming to Bush's ideas about reforming the health care system.

Of course, Krauthammer's analysis overlooks a few things. We also dismantled Iraq's military and justice system. I think that was a bit infantilizing, too, besides being bone-headed.

And we refuse to speak to their neighbors because we don't like them. That's not infantilizing. It's just infantile.

Oh, and we've killed some hundred thousand Iraqis. I guess they were supposed to appreciate that, too.

So, we'll blame them as we go. Maybe Americans will forget it was a war of choice, and accept that the Iraqis are more responsible for the war's failure than the people who made that choice. Because all Americans are stupid and have short memories, right?

What was that about infantilizing?