The critic’s role

I had a project manager once who taught all of us on his staff never to bring him a problem without also proposing to him one or more viable solutions to that problem. I recall him dressing down a manager once (not me, thank goodness) for bringing just the problem. As he said, we were paid to think of solutions – if we were going to leave that to him then why was he paying us?

I think of this often as I listen to critics of the administration’s Iraq policy. There certainly is a problem here. Whatever we are doing doesn’t seem to be working, as the critics remind us daily. But where are the viable alternatives these critics should be proposing? I don’t see any.

Just packing up, declaring victory and pulling our troops out isn’t a viable alternative, popular as it may be with voters. It would just leave Iraq mired in sectarian bloodshed, a new safe haven for terrorist organizations, and a tempting target for Iran to expand its anti-American influence in the Middle East. A viable alternative has to account for these possibilities, and many others.

So I’m waiting for all these vocal critics to propose one or more viable alternative strategies. If they can’t propose viable alternatives, their criticism isn’t really worth much.