Wednesday, June 29, 2005
Welfare Reform Meets Iraq Policy
Well, not exactly, but the ever-surprising John Derbyshire makes a very interesting observation on the "timetable" question:
Of course, war is a very different beast, but certain aspects of human nature translate across both geography and situation. Derb's (reader's) main point is a good one -- figure out how to concentrate the mind of (good) Iraqis to help speed up the transition process.
UPDATE: Geez!! I can't believe Saletan over at Slate beat me to the "welfare reform" meme -- by four hours!!! Aargh!!!! (Thanks to Matthew Yglesias over at Tapped for blogging Will.)
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A reader whose work is to get franchise operations up and running tells me it's **KEY** to have some definite date when his guys w and let the franchisee take over. If you don't do that, the psychological dependence never gets broken -- the training wheels never come off. That sounds right to me. Putting together a working army and police force doesn't take THAT long, if the motivation is there. Six month's training is fine for combat troops. Yet here we are in year three. Perhaps a withdrawal date would concentrate Iraqi minds. Frankly, they don't seem all that concentrated right now.A similar sentiment, of course, formed the underpinning of welfare reform. It could only succeed if welfare's open-ended entitlement status ended and recipients were given a clear timetable upon which to get their act together before aid was cut off.
Of course, war is a very different beast, but certain aspects of human nature translate across both geography and situation. Derb's (reader's) main point is a good one -- figure out how to concentrate the mind of (good) Iraqis to help speed up the transition process.
UPDATE: Geez!! I can't believe Saletan over at Slate beat me to the "welfare reform" meme -- by four hours!!! Aargh!!!! (Thanks to Matthew Yglesias over at Tapped for blogging Will.)
