Response to Emails About President's Speech

Whew! The emails are coming in regarding my last post on the President's Speech, "President Responds to Study Group."

The purpose of my blogs in general are to muse on business and the security industry. I am not writing a slanted political blog one way or the other (I have enough outlets for that). However, I felt that the President's speech last night was particularly important because of its historical significance.

If you can, put politics and personal thoughts of the war aside for one moment and consider the foreign relations import of the speech and what it stood for.

My attempt in the previous post was to point out that we (as a society) can avoid acting rash and emotional and rather take a strong analytic approach. Find out what the problem is, where it stems from, and try to address it from all aspects (military, policing, economics, and religion). It is a bold approach to foreign relations, to have a group (of the stature of the Iraq Study Group) propose a plan of action for the nation, and for the President to acknowledge these suggestions (in a time of war) and act upon them. History, decades from now, will view this as not a power play by a sitting President but rather an admission that other views are relevant and act publicly on this admission.

President Responds to Study Group

For anyone who missed President Bush’s address last evening, I encourage that you take a serious look at the video or official transcript. Without getting into partisan politics in this piece, I am encouraging those following current events and modern history to take note of the next few months. Among the notable aspects of the speech, it was hard to miss the definite overtones from the Iraq Study group. The failure to “clear and hold” troubled areas was mentioned as a crucial stumbling block that requires immediate attention. Study group recommendations #26 thru #28 regarding constitutional review, de-Baathification, and oil revenue sharing were addressed almost verbatim, as was mention of the troubling attempts with training and embedding military leadership with Iraqi forces.

While everyone freely admits the answer is not clear-cut by any means, the President is showing the ability that this nation has to draw upon our resources of a qualified intellectual base. Regardless of political affiliation, Americans, all humanity, should be encouraged by the development of a process to resolve a painful and inhumane situation. While the trouble in Iraq with sectarian violence, poverty, and limited expectations may not be resolved overnight, there is hope that by analyzing the trouble openly and devoting resources globally, we may be able to provide a positive influence in 2007.

The President has used political verbiage to address a strategy; it is now up to the global society to listen to the words and respond to the actions in an attempt to move forward in 2007 and beyond.