Ignoring It Doesn't Make It Go Away

Catching up on stories that slipped between the cracks of my attention during the holidays (perhaps slipped through the gaping maws of my attention would be a better phrase), here's a column from Sunday's Washington Post by Richard Clarke, former terror expert in the Bush and Clinton administrations. In "While You Were at War . . . ," Clarke discusses the various international issues the Bush administration should be addressing but can't because all our resources are being poured into Iraq. Here's how he describes the problem:

with the nation involved in a messy war spiraling toward a bad conclusion, the key deputies and Cabinet members and advisers are all focusing on one issue, at the expense of all others: Iraq.

National Security Council veteran Rand Beers has called this the "7-year-old's soccer syndrome" -- just like little kids playing soccer, everyone forgets their particular positions and responsibilities and runs like a herd after the ball.

The seven neglected international issues he lists are global warming, Russian revanchism, Latin America's leftist lurch, Africa at war, lack of an arms control freeze, transnational crime, and the Pakistani-Afghan border. In any other time, these problems would be getting some sort of administration attention. But instead, the Prez is looking to pour more resources and personnel into Iraq.

As the president contemplates sending even more U.S. forces into the Iraqi sinkhole, he should consider not only the thousands of fatalities, the tens of thousands of casualties and the hundreds of billions of dollars already lost. He must also weigh the opportunity cost of taking his national security barons off all the other critical problems they should be addressing -- problems whose windows of opportunity are slamming shut, unheard over the wail of Baghdad sirens.

At this point, I guess we have to wait another two years or more for some other president to come in and start pulling us out of Iraq. Let's hope that none of the issues Clarke identifies rises up to bite us in the meantime.