Word: retreatant
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...tough, but we need to show that we can be smart," he said. "I know that makes people anxious who want to turn Fallujah into a parking lot, but you can win the battle and lose the war." Hawkish critics immediately called the new softening a retreat. But it was only one of many examples of shifting tactics. Bush won't change his mind when the French want to avoid a war at all costs, but he is willing to change course if there's a smarter way to get where he wants to go. He still thinks international institutions...
Corporate mergers in Japan are usually less than scintillating, proceeding as predictably as a Kabuki play. Executives of two companies?one strong, the other in dire financial straits?typically retreat behind closed doors to broker a deal, usually with little input from shareholders but plenty from the government. All too frequently, these secretive, stage-managed bailouts put a priority not on maximizing profits, increasing shareholder value or reforming busted business models but on preserving jobs (especially those of the managers themselves), promoting "stability" and maintaining the status...
That's as good a summary as any of the state of play in Iraq today. Even if the battle for control of the mosque ends in al-Sadr's retreat, the struggle for control of the country is far from over. Resolution of the standoff in Najaf may help boost the legitimacy of the interim U.S.-backed government and its Prime Minister, Iyad Allawi, among Iraqis fed up with al-Sadr's truculence. And yet the renegade cleric still commands thousands of fervent followers willing to take up arms anytime at his order, and his strident defiance...
LESSONS OF NAJAF Even if the battle for control of the Imam Ali shrine ends in Muqtada al-Sadr's retreat, the struggle for control of the country is far from over. Strike too hard, and the insurgency will only harden. Back down, and risk losing politically. Is there a way out of this dilemma...
...Kerry distinguished himself two years ago by criticizing Bush for not using U.S. troops to attack the trapped al Qaeda leadership at Tora Bora. That sort of detailed, sophisticated critique has vanished from Kerry's repertoire. He hasn't had anything of interest to say about the humiliating American retreat from Fallujah--a city that has subsequently become a miniature rogue state within Iraq--or about the mystifying, flip-floppy U.S. attitude toward the Shi'ite revolutionary Muqtada al-Sadr. Kerry hasn't said whether he thinks Bush Administration policy was responsible for the torture at Abu Ghraib...