Exit Strategies, a Lesson in Impotence
Henry Kissinger’s written a long gas about exit strategies, as in the one we didn’t have in Vietnam and the one we should have had in Iraq. Henry’s old enough and craggy enough that most people have forgiven him for being such an international terrorist when he was Nixon's National Security Advisor and then Secretary of State. But old Hank, hawk to the end and model for Dr. Strangelove, was never one personally to back away from the endangerment of other people’s lives.
But it strikes me that we “negotiate by other means” with our hands tied when we start shooting at and bombing various and sundry miscreants with a declared “exit strategy” thrown in. It’s a great thing to have an exit strategy in the business-takeover game or maybe even in such things as marriage (what else is a prenuptial agreement?). But murderous as both those endeavors might end up being, they start out with everyone hoping for mutual success.
If I understand wars properly, the home team starts out hoping the in…