This is not the central question. It is not even a question. We are staying in Iraq. I served there last year and will go again. So will many others. Our generation refuses to lose like boomer losers. Arguing with you about the time it takes to fight a counterinsurgency is pointless. The weakness of liberals shows they are unfit to hold power. All you can do is argue and waive signs. You're gutless.We will prevail.

Mr Wittman, of all people, isn't suggesting leaving. He's asking what Americans are doing in Iraq, right now and on in to the forseeable future, that is moving the chains towards victory.

All that's happening now is a massive re-enactment of Anzio, and an expensive one in terms of lives and capital. How do we change that dynamic so we're actually in a position to win? And no, "keep doing what we're doing" is not a serious contribution to the conversation.

I have no answers either. It's difficult because the immediate obstacle--largely Sunni insurgents--is not the most potent long-term obstacle to success--Shi'ite and Kurdish militias likely to rend ther country apart when their particular vision of a federal Iraqi state isn't realized. But if we're in it, we better be in it to win it and not just save face, waggle our bits, and ignore reality.

"<span class="Apple-style-span">We are paying the price for the Bushies' failure to prepare for the occupation and the lack of sufficient troops.</span&gt"
To put it mildly, this is putting the cart before the horse.
We are paying the price for the Bushies' stupidity to invade Iraq in the first place. It should come as no surprise that people dumb enough to invade a country that was no threat to us (and turn their attention away from real threats) were clueless about what to do afterwards.
Tristero 

The problem with the "it takes time to defeat an insurgency" line is that while it is probably true, it is totally the opposite of what the Bush Administration has been saying since the start of the war.  According to them, we are constantly turning the corner, about to defeat the insurgents.  The insurgents are said to be in their "death throes" etc.  We heard the same thing after each milestone, such as the capture of Saddam, the elections, the invasion of Fallujah etc.

Then there's the issue of the state of the military, with the various recruiting difficulties and decreased readiness.  The signs are that the military is hollowing out, with many career mid-level officers refusing to continue. 

If the expectation is that defeating the insurgents will take a long time, why don't we hear that?

The first rule of leadership is having the ability to face reality.  The current leadership in Washington and their conservative cheerleaders are either being totally dishonest when they say that the insurgency is about to collapse.  Or else they're in deep denial.  Either way, they, not liberals, are the ones who have proven themselves unfit to hold power.

I'm dubious of advocating a "slot machine" strategy in our conduct of this war. You've seen it in action somewhere I'm sure; the bleery-eyed, tired, semi-irrational gambler parked in front of a one-armed bandit. When tempted to pack it in he thinks to himself "That damned machine has $200.00 of MY money, I ain't leaving til I get it back!" How we'll ever know we've broken even and it's OK to leave eludes me. More likely we'll just keep plugging in the dollars and spend more of the rent money chasing Dubya's fantasy.

Tristero, I share your anger at Bush for putting us in Iraq in the first place, but we need to put that behind us and focus on what the Democrats can do now that we're there.  We can't just position ourselves as the "I-told-you-so" party.  That just alienates the millions of Americans who supported the war at first but now have doubts.  The Democrats have a responsibility right now to be the reality-based ones, because the GOP clearly isn't.  And that means the Democrats' position on Iraq has to have more substance than "Step 1: Build a time-machine.  Step 2: Go back and win Florida in 2000."

This post (with a few words changed) would not have looked out of place in 1969.

A Vietnam Vet.

"Do we stay in Iraq to help establish a stable government or do we seek an early exit strategy? I agree with Haas that conceding defeat is unfathomable - the country would descend into utter chaos and we would betray the genuine Iraqi democrats."

We should leave and right now. The country is already in chaos and we've already lost Iraq to whatever forces are now pulling at it. Bush has no victory strategy because any strategy would mean an increase in troop levels. With the stress of multiple deployments and recruitment problems our forces now face, I don't see how that can be accomplished without the draft.

As Democrats, are we prepared to call for a draft? If not then staying any longer in Iraq is an exercise in futility.

My response.

I agree with Haas that conceding defeat is unfathomable - the country would descend into utter chaos and we would betray the genuine Iraqi democrats.

Conceding defeat ? Saddam is removed, there were no WMD, that is going to be the sole success of this ill-conceived mis adventure.

We are paying the price for the Bushies' failure to prepare for the occupation and the lack of sufficient troops

No, we are paying the price for invading in the first place. Even in 2003 there were not enough troops to handle nation building. You seriously think throwing another 100k into the mix back then would have made a difference ? I think that is just delusion.  Indeed it might even have worsened the situation becuase we would have burned through our troop rotation much much faster.

I certainly have no solution.  But when Congress returns next week, Democrats should send a clear message to demand Administration accountability for the Iraq mess.  Merely staying the course is no longer acceptable.

We just had that chance ot vote on a sense of congress to get an exit strategy from the President and it failed ot pass substantially. Has something changed in the last week i am not aware of for congress, and the Dems to have some cathartic moment ?

There will be an increasing temptation of some to suggest a pull-out.  The Republicans will seize on these statements to claim that Democrats are for "cutting and running".  Rather, Democrats must begin questioning whether this Administration has a victory strategy in Iraq.

This is where i nearly lose it. Suppose there is NO victory strategy ? You yourself say you cannot think of one, yet somehow the administration that cannot plan its way out of a paperbag is supposed to dream one up out of nowhere ?! This is just insanity. Do we continue on the current road for another 2 years, and waste how many more lives, how much more money into this neat grinder.

I have not read or heard ANYONE with a cogent plan for "victory". Sometimes you just cant plan for not crashing your car after it has plowed into a wall.

There is no reason that the Republican Party should be able to portray themselves as the party of strength.  They have failed to put sufficient resources into the military because of massive tax cuts for the wealthy.  And most tragically, they are costing America precious blood and treasure with no plan for success.

agreed on their weakness, but we get right back to this plan for success BS. What fricken plan is there ? Sure they could raise taxes, so at least then the only thing we waste is lives and the money of the rich, but thats hardly a plan for victory now, is it ?

Until people like you give up on this misadventure for the colosal mistake it was and is, then solutions are jsut going to have to wait. Though i think by the time that comes around we may be facing a complete collapse of our Army, it's already looking pretty damn hollow- and for what ? Pictures of Saddam in his underwear.

Anonymous Hero,
Sorry, I disagree. Those of us who "told you so" barely have a media voice, even now. We're still portrayed as tree-hugging anti-war hippies rather than what we actually are: clear-eyed Americans who carefully assessed all the information publicly available and concluded we were being led down a primrose path to an endless disaster.
I don't see, for example, Jessica Tuchman Mathews with her own cable show. Brady Kiesling, the diplomat who resigned just before the war, is not a regular commentator anywhere as far as I know. I can list many more honest, sensible people who simply have no place in the mass media discourse, while those who were neither continue to provide bad commentary and advice to the public and those in power.
If we embarass those who were wrong about Iraq, well, they should be embarassed, and contrite. As for the American people, I think there is nothing wrong with telling them they were cynically snookered by the Bush administration. Among other things, it has the virtue of being true.
What to do now? As mentioned elsewhere, the only sensible beginning of a plan starts with Bush leaving office. Then we need to elect some competent people into the White House and Congress and work with an international coalition to try to come up with the beginnings of workable plan. Meanwhile, I strongly suggest you make sure your kids don't sign up for the military or, if they already have, insist that they don't re-enlist.
Since Bush won't be impeached, the best thing we can do right now is tell the Bushies again and again, "You bought Iraq, you broke it, you fix it." And get out of his way as they continue to fail.
Regarding the increasing dreadful carnage and chaos there, we are incapable of doing anything to stop it until Bush has gone back to Crawford and people who know what they are doing are once again in charge. The problem is not ideas, but sheer incompetence at the top levels of the US government. 

What a nonsensical article.




conceding defeat is unfathomable - the country would descend into utter chaos and we would betray the genuine Iraqi democrats.




First, the country seems to have already decended into chaos. Many, I among them, make the case that the longer we stay the worse things will get as we provide the irritant of foreign occupation that fuels an increasing insurgency.




Second, is it defeat or the concession thereof that is so "unfathomable?" Let's say I just stuck my arm into a meat grinder. Is conceding the loss of my hand "unfathomable?" Face it, my fingers are history, not conceding that won't change a thing. Not taking my arm out of the grinder and getting it bandaged is the worst possible course of action. Yet that is exactly what Mr. Wittman prescribes.

He admits he has no solution. Then what's his point? Continue on in a straight course into the iceberg?

is the difference between an "acceptible loss" and an "unacceptible loss."

Why do we "have to stay"? We have to stay because my mother said so. When I was growing up, you didn't make a mess and walk away from it, even if you felt like it wasn't your fault because you had not intended to make the mess in the first place. It didn't matter what you had thought or intended, in other words. You had to stay because you were responsible, and you were responsible because irresponsibility was not an option. You never, ever wanted someone else to do the job you were responsible for, because that would look very bad for you. And you sure as hell didn't want to try to pass the buck, put the blame for your mess on someone else's shoulders, because that was worse than being merely irresponsible -- that was being downright immoral.

 Now, I think that when it comes to Dubya, such early childhood lessons are useful. Barbara apparently dropped the ball on the whole responsibility thing, although she's trying to make up for it with The Barbara Bush Foundation for Family Literacy, in whose mission statement it states that "the home is the child's first school, [and] the parent is the child's first teacher". Of course, it doesn't help us now with George W., the man who most desperately needs to read up on what's going on and stop trusting his flunkies to read it to him. I'm kidding, naturally. We all know that he knows damn well what's going on. It's just that he doesn't feel responsible for it. God is responsible for it. The terrorists are responsible. Someone else is responsible. Dubya is just bumbling along singing "Doo-da, doo-da..." and trusting that somehow, some way, someone else will clean up the mess or else he'll be out of office so who cares? He'll have done what Rove, Cheney, Wolfowitz, et al. wanted him to do, after all. Which kind of makes them responsible, right? Nudge-nudge, wink-wink.

 Yeah, well, you know what? Maybe "We the People" ought to consider ourselves responsible for getting Dubya all over Liberty's blue-green shoe. Maybe we ought to consider that, complicit or not in the schemes and stratagems of the erstwhile Leader of the Free World (if not its "Internets"), it's become our mess, too, this mess in beleaguered Iraq. Maybe we should simply accept the fact that, one way or another, we have a moral obligation now, as a nation of voting people, to stay, to help, to do something positive for the people of Iraq. Because, like it or not, we're living in the zone of responsibility, the lot of us. And if we don't think its our fault that the mess exists, well, we can discuss how to avoid such messes in future -- as we clean up this one.

 I am a proud liberal. I grew up reading a lot. One thing I learned from all that reading is that my mother was right about being responsible or facing the negative consequences of having chosen to be irresponsible. For those who want to see this moral play enacted on the international stage (with audience participation, expected or not), please stay tuned to numerous news sources.

I certainly have no solution.  But when Congress returns next week, Democrats should send a clear message to demand Administration accountability for the Iraq mess. . .

If Democrats can't even begin to point toward a solution to our country's most pressing national security problem, why on earth should they ever expect to be voted back into power?

This issue is being discussed more productively on the other two TPM Cafe posts on the same subject this morning.

"Step 1: Build a time-machine.  Step 2: Go back and win Florida in 2000."

Oh, don't get me started. It boggles the mind to think of just how many things these guys have gotten wrong in the past 5 years.

Bush doesn't have any ranching experience. Cowboy Dubya can't ride.

Thanks to Bush's dishonesty and incompetence we are now at the "shit or get off the pot" stage in our Iraq policy.

Meaning, we either have to drastically increase our troop deployment in Iraq so we can seal off the borders more effectively without compromising basic security, or we should get the hell out.

It's not a complicated problem from a military standpoint. But it's mucho problematic from a political one.

That's because the only way we can literally double our troop strength in Iraq, and still maintain our security posture around the globe is to reinstutute the draft.

If, as you suggest, leaving Iraq is unthinkable at this point, then you should logically be supporting a draft. Or, at the very least, you should be following Kos' advice and start packing your bags for basic training.

If, like me, you actually believe that if Democracy in Iraq is worth fighting for, then the "Iraqi Democrats" such as they are, will be much helped by our leaving.

I suggest that once we leave Iraq, the anti-invader fuel for the insurgency will be burned out rather quickly. All that will be left are the Islamic radicals.

But, without Americans to blame for their problems, or US occupation forces patrolling their country, the hue and cry of their cause will start falling on more and more deaf ears.

Maybe I'm wrong. But, frankly, I don't care. We are going to be forced into a draft, or total withdrawl sooner or later. It's the problem LBJ had to face with the instransigent Vietcong. His solution was to go all out and deploy half a million troops.

That didn't work out so well in Vietnam. I am not so sure that will happen in Iraq if we do something similar. But, it sure is a distinct possibility.

At some point, the war supporters have to face reality. Our odds to win this thing are gowing longer and longer.

Bush will never authorize or request a draft. Even if we have to lose Iraq. Of course, that's one reason why people like me opposed  Bush's war in Iraq in the first place. We weren't stupid enough to trust Bush to do it right. You were.

Now you have to live with the consequences.

Come up with a realistic plan - NOW. Or, get us the f*^k out of there.

It's really just that simple. The present scenario of we'll just keep fighting until we think of something is not, and should never be, an acceptable strategy.

Do we stay in Iraq to help establish a stable government or do we seek an early exit strategy? 

You won't get the correct answer if you don't ask the correct question.

Does the Democratic party make the same mistake Nixon made when he adopted LBJ's war and transformed it into Nixon's war?

Conceeding defeat in Vietnam was unfathomable. Remember the Monolithic Communist Menace and the Domino Theory? The WOT is just as big a joke as the Monolithic Communist Menace and the Domino Theory. Afghanistan was the correct target and the only legitimate response to 9/11 was invading Afghanistan, taking down the Taliban and Al Qaida and rebuilding the country.

Bush didn't even implement the invasion right and abandoned the second two goals. Iraq is a bigger abomination than Vietnam was. There was less reason to occupy Iraq and the lies that led to Bush's Iraq War were more blatant and more widely known. Since the publication of the Downing Street Memo, there is absolutely no question the Iraq War is illegal and immoral.  

The only solution is immediate withdrawal. Vietnam is doing much better and surprise, surprise, is turning into a functioning part of the global economy and global community.

There is neither a legitimate role nor a legitimate goal for the United States in Iraq. The Middle East Humpty Dumpty is broken beyond repair and all the King's horse and all the King's men, can't put Iraq back together again. The only honorable course is to admit that Bush lied, American occupation of Iraq is both wrong and counter-productive and the invasion was a mistake.

The rapidest possible exit strategy is the only option any Democrat who sincerely wants to win the Democratic primary should be considering. In two years the growing tide of bitterness and discontent with the Iraq war will be a floodtide. It won't take 50,000 lives and fifteen years for the American people to demand that America withdraw from Iraq.

Over at Yahoo News, The Other Bomb Drops:

The Sunday Times of London recently reported on new evidence showing that "The RAF and US aircraft doubled the rate at which they were dropping bombs on Iraq in 2002 in an attempt to provoke Saddam Hussein into giving the allies an excuse for war." The paper cites newly released statistics from the British Defense Ministry showing that "the Allies dropped twice as many bombs on Iraq in the second half of 2002 as they did during the whole of 2001" and that "a full air offensive" was under way months before the invasion had officially begun.

It only takes one member of Congress to begin an impeachment process, and Conyers is said to be considering the option. The process would certainly be revealing. Congress could subpoena Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Gen. Richard Myers, Gen.Tommy Franks and all of the military commanders and pilots involved with the no-fly zone bombings going back into the late 1990s. What were their orders, both given and received? In those answers might lie a case for impeachment.

But another question looms, particularly for Democrats who voted for the war and now say they were misled: Why weren't these unprovoked and unauthorized attacks investigated when they were happening, when it might have had a real impact on the Administration's drive to war? Perhaps that's why the growing grassroots campaign to use the Downing Street memo to impeach Bush can't get a hearing on Capitol Hill. A real probing of this "smoking gun" would not be uncomfortable only for Republicans. The truth is that Bush, like President Bill Clinton before him, oversaw the longest sustained bombing campaign since Vietnam against a sovereign country with no international or US mandate. That gun is probably too hot for either party to touch.

I agree that it is a no win situation.  However, we are fortunate in that we can choose exactly how it is we are going to lose.  We can withdraw, but continue to provide some small military and financial aid (weapons, training) to the Shi'ah government.  Or we can withdraw to the borders, tell the shi'ah and Iran that they're on their own.  We can admit failure and partition Iraq, which looks to be happening anyway.

 If we leave, we aren't abandoning Iraq.  We are acknowledging the reality that we have constructed, the future we have chosen.  Rest assured, if we leave, the shi'ah aren't going to sit idly by and allow themselves to be slaughtered by the Sunni minority.  Even if the insurgents were to somehow back the majority's militias into some kind of corner, Iran would not tolerate it's prospective client state failing.  Iran would save its version of Iraq.

 That, is our best case scenario now...allow Iran to become the regional power it is destined to be.  Right now we find ourselves  trying to maintain a status quo that is intolerable.  Too many competing interests that have no interest in the vision of Iraq we advocate.  By remaining, we can forestall Iraq's future indefinitely.  But we cannot create a new one.

Better to just let what has to happen, happen. 

"How are we going to stay"  We can't deal with the insurgents now with 150,000 troops and we do not have the replacement troops to replace those in country now.  40% of the troops are reserve or Guard who cannot by law bekept on active duty past two years. 

It's been on the record for a long time that we cannot maintain this level of troop strength much longer.

So what choice do you have left, leave or start the draft.

As some one said in an earlier post, change a few words and you have Nam. 

Maybe we should simply accept the fact that, one way or another, we have a moral obligation now, as a nation of voting people, to stay, to help, to do something positive for the people of Iraq.

The implied parenthetical to our "moral obligation" is that it is possible for the United States to achieve something positive in Iraq. Before we accept your premise, you must define (1) what positive, realistic goal you wish to achieve and (2) how we can pragmatically achieve it.

What were you taught growing up about an impossible situation? Did you mother teach you to keep beating your head against the wall until your head was a bloody pulp?

What were you taught about your moral responsibility for killing innocent people? If your conduct was unintentionally killing thousands of innocent people every month, what would your personal responsibility be? Would you stop whatever it is you were doing that resulted in so many deaths?

The presence of the United States aggravates a situation that is already untenable. There is nothing productive we can achieve. Just exactly like Vietnam, the best solution and the moral solution is to withdraw immediately.

I would like nothing more than to see Iraq pick itself up and succeed, democratize and develop. I welcomed the election, and I think the Iraqi Defense Forces are showing enormous courage. But I am concerned about the American Defense Forces, e.g. the U.S. military, the losses we’re taking, the expenses we’re incurring, the international political capital we are expending.

Unfortunately, the Administration had gotten itself completely off-track in Iraq and now faces the terrifying prospect of withdrawing American troops as insurgents come out of the woodwork and take over that country. Choppers evacuated embassies in Saigon and Phnom Penh, let’s not have a repeat in Baghdad. So the Administration is stuck.

Bush cannot “cut and run” – to do so would be to hand Iraq over to the insurgents and establish a failed state and terrorist haven. Nevertheless, we need to figure out a way of solving Iraq because we literally cannot afford to stay there for very much longer, yet we simply can’t leave anytime soon. There has been, and will continue to be, a cost for this policy, and we’ll be paying it long after Bush leaves office.

So what is to be done? In a TPMcafe.com world exclusive, here is tupac's 10 POINT PLAN.

1. Adequately equip US troops with the materiel they need to carry out their missions.

2. Continue to stand up a viable Iraqi domestic security apparatus so that Iraqis can take responsibility for securing their own country.

3. Use said apparatus to create a buffer zone on the hot borders with Iran and Syria, and bring some meaningful border security to those areas, thereby denying “foreign fighters” a way into the country.

4. Once the borders have been secured, engage in a robust joint US and Iraqi counterinsurgency operation in order to arrest and marginalize insurgents.

5. Engage in a massive, countrywide campaign to collect weapons and munitions from the citizenry. Offer rewards if necessary. Where Iraqis are going, e.g. democracy, they won’t need their AK’s and hand grenades.

6. Secure the oil fields, bring oil exports up to healthy levels, and use the proceeds to pay for ongoing security operations by the Iraqi security forces.

7. Support Iraqi civil society by investing in the civic infrastructure, specifically education, healthcare, and community and other non-governmental organizations. Continue to repair the country’s broken utility infrastructure to ensure access to electricity, clean water to all, and Internet access to those who wish it.

8. Stand up the Iraqi economy by creating effective, functioning institutions such as a real stock exchange and invest in the Iraqi private sector through VC funding and direct aid.

9. Contribute to the establishment of a free press in Iraq, a necessary condition for democracy to flourish, by investing in news organizations and creating the opportunity for Iraqis to study at western journalism schools.

10. Raze Abu Ghraib and build a memorial there. Then withdraw. Target date, March 2006, one year from now. Can we do it?

... seems like a problem to me.

Whether the solution is military or not, Democrats need to offer some sense of what they'd do about Iraq if they were in charge.

Throwing up our hands and saying, "It's too hard! Ask the Republicans, they botched it up" is the best way to guarantee that voters will ask the Republicans to solve the problem ... in 2006, and again in 2008.

Yes, we're in a deep hole, but Democrats at least need to point to a spot and say, "I'd start climbing here." (Or, um, something like that.)

While I would agree that there is very little chance of a draft ever being instituted- mercenaries will be hired first, while the lunatic fringe will continue to insist on impressing illegal immigrants into military service- I do think it is necessary for the Democractic party to start beating the drum by introducing a new resolution for a draft every day between now and the end of Bush's term.  Basically, there has to be one message- It's time for America to put up or shut up.  Nothing will come of it, but it will shift the onus of responsibility for the conduct of the war from the past to the present and future. 

Militarily, there are a few options, none of them pleasant to contemplate.  We could consolidate and concentrate on protecting Baghdad and the oilfields, while leaving the rest of the country to sort itself out.  That would essentially turn Iraq into Afghanistan and would do nothing to prevent the sort of turmoil in which Islamic terrorism can breed, but it would protect the major urban center in the country and continue the fiction of a representative ruling government.  The other thing we could do is to come out and recognize that a civil war is starting and to go ahead and take sides.  The problem is that the Shi'a are going to win and that the result of their victory could easily be an Islamic totalitarian state and a close alliance between Iran and Iraq, hardly what we had in mind when we went to war.  But it would shorten the window for instability and wouldn't preclude our maintaining a military presence in Iraq.  Or we could engage in a massive and intensive training of a secular Iraqi officer corp that could then come back and train a large and modern army.  That would take a minimum of another year, and could conceivably set the stage for a return to the sort of military junta rule that we just finished getting rid of, but you could hope for a moderate military force along the lines of Turkey's that would toe the moderate line and prevent radical Islamicists from coming to power.  In terms of achieving our long-term goals for the region (and I do think there were some essentially idealistic goals under all the Halliburton dreck), that's probably the best option, but it does mean another year of rising casualties and falling enlistments.

Phoenix Rising has, in a manner mildly unkind and probably unfair to Marshall Wittman and the Cafe, weighed in on the issue:

http://phoenixwoman.blogspot.com/2005/06/kerry-plan-for-iraq.html

-- Charles

PS: Tristero, regarding the photos of Saddam, now you know what the credit card ad means when it ends "yatternatter priceless."

Iraq is Arabic for Vietnam.

"Trolling is not tolerated here. Any comment may be deleted by a site admin, and all trolls will be deleted. This is fair warning. If you don't know what trolling is, then you're probably not about to do it, so don't worry. :-)"

We are paralyzed in Iraq because there are no good options.  (I choose to disregard the crazy man posing as vice president who says we are winning).  It has been my experience that when you are having a hard time making a decision something comes along to help you decide and it's not always a positive thing.  We are forgetting that we are not the only people involved.  I believe some of the more vicious elements in Iraq would like nothing more than to help us figure out what to do. 

Some nasty folks with bad plans for Lebanon didn't want us there and blew up the Marine barracks.  We left.  According to bin Laden, 9/11 was in part because he didn't want us in Saudi Arabia.  We aren't there anymore.  Not like we were.

I just read over at the Washington Note that some folks believe the white house is holding up defense appropriations bills because they're mad at John Warner for judges.  That's the kind of stupid, petty crap that will lead to weaknesses in Iraq that the insurgents will exploit as they help us make up our minds what to do.  I think we have less time than we think.

The Kerry Plan for Iraq

I don't know why Phoenix woman calls it the Kerry plan. If that's Kerry's plan he should adopt it in the next thirty days.

If Biden likes that plan he should adopt it in the next thirty days.

If that's Hillary's or Bayh's plan, they should adopt it in the next thirty days.

If they rest on their laurels because they "aren't really running" for the Democratic nomination for President they are not qualified to be President. It is not acceptable for a leader to remain silent on the most critical issue facing America. As Martin Luther King said:

"It's not the words of our enemies we need to fear, it's the silence of our friends."    Or something to that effect.

In two years it will be two years too late to adopt Mercury Rising's "Kerry Plan" or any other plan. The time for all serious candidates for the Democratic nomination to step forward is now. The time to challenge President Bush on the details of his exit strategy is now.

What kind of leader fails to lead? What kind of leader remains silent on the greatest issue of the day?

Social Security is in a different category, because there isn't a problem that needs to be fixed. We can easily wait five or ten years to see how the economy performs and how solvent Social Security really is. We can't wait two or three years for somebody to step forward with a plan and demand that Bush present his exit strategy to the American people.

Here.

Before we accept your premise, you must define (1) what positive, realistic goal you wish to achieve and (2) how we can pragmatically achieve it.

 Is that the royal "we" you're employing, or are you speaking for everyone here at TPM Caf&eacute;? Just curious.

  I do not know that it is an impossible situation, any more than I know for sure that there is a short or long-term "good" solution. Sometimes you just have to try to do what's best, and rely on as many others as you need to in order to best navigate the situation. Looking at me and saying that I should be able to tell you "how we can pragmatically achieve" such a goal is... well, silly. I'm not a maker of foreign policy or some sort of key player. I'm sure for some folks that means I should shut up, but then most of them should, too, if that's the criterion for being able to express an opinion.

 As for having to answer to God, well, I'm an agnostic... but I believe in flesh and blood reality and in the sanctity of others' lives, their autonomy, their basic human rights. So at the very least, I think we owe it to the people of Iraq to find out from them what it is they want. Point being, charity and respect are the least we can offer. So shouldn't we at least try to give them that much? If they want us all to get the hell out and never darken their door again, then we need to back the hell off and give them space. How that translates into the real world brass tacks of reconstruction, I don't know. Maybe, though, someone does. Or perhaps someone can at least explain to me why it is we need to do something else, without platitudes, self-serving predictions or whatever form of puffery.

What were you taught about your moral responsibility for killing innocent people? If your conduct was unintentionally killing thousands of innocent people every month, what would your personal responsibility be? Would you stop whatever it is you were doing that resulted in so many deaths?

 I assume that's rhetorical, yeah? I grew up in America, was told that murder is wrong, that sometimes people go to war but that we should avoid it if possible, that you should do your best to find and support truth and justice, and that you have God to answer to for whatever you choose to do.

 Now I'm much older, and I know (for myself) that life often makes simple truths complicated. Black and white is for kids; the adults get all the grays they can handle, if not more. I am against the military occupation of any nation whose people are not quite vocally demanding it for their own protection, and then I believe it's something the U.N. should be first in on. Then again, however, I have certainly seen Hotel Rwanda and plenty of documentary coverage. So I don't think it's going to be peaches and sunlights just because, all right?

 I offer my comments not as well-honed solutions but as expressions of my informed opinion. I remain open to education, and I would never claim to be free of blind spots or ignorance. If you have something constructive to say, I welcome it.

If we start advocating a withdrawal, which I believe we must, we must be prepared to deal with Republican rhetoric.  I think this is easy.  We should reply that we are concerned with what is best for the American people first.  That should definitely put the Republicans on the defensive because they'll have to explain why "staying the course" is better for the American people.  And when you have to explain, you lose.

"conceding defeat is unfathomable" ??  What the heck does that mean ?  In the time US troops have been in Iraq, possibly 100000 Iraqis have died as a result; unemployment is higher than under Saddam; electricity supply is lower; women's rights are being suppressed by Islamiist militias.  And the country is having a civil war, though the press here doesn't quite admit it yet.

Those who support a continued US presence need to give a detailed plan right now as to how they might get Iraq onto a path of improvement in security, infrastructure, and economic activity. Because so far it has gone pretty steadily downhill.  To carry on doing the same thing and expect a different result is simply insanity.

Beyond the plain fact that the whole debacle has made Iraq worse, not better, we also have to worry about the opportunity costs.  By having the bulk of the Army and Marines in Iraq, we've missed the chance to do anything about genocide in Darfur; we've left North Korea to fester; and we're suffering a crisis of military recruitment and retention which may cripple the US's defense for a generation.  And of course there's roughly $100B/year going into Iraq, when just a small fraction of that applied to humanitarian efforts elsewhere could do enormous good.

 If liberal hawks want to be taken seriously, then they need to admit that blundering into an invasion without having a detailed plan for the aftermath is always and inevitably a disaster; that doing so on the basis of such  weak intelligence is doubly stupid.  Re-committing to the Powell Doctrine (even though Powell himself helped destroy it) might also be a good step. And you should also have the balls to apologize to the people who got it right, e.g. Dean, Chirac, Schroder. 

Until then, have the common sense to keep your mouths shut rather than digging the hole deeper with this "defeat is unfathomable" bullshit.

How much money and how many lives is the position in Iraq worth?

And what's the payoff? 

        >> the country would descend into utter chaos

which would be such a shame considering how peaceful it is now.

...back when we killed 100,000 filipinos in the Spanish American war

No, we didn't.

Our takeover of the Phillippines in that war was relatively bloodless.  18 American dead and presumably few Spanish and Filipino dead, most of them probably the 380 Spanish sailors that died in the one real battle at Manila Bay.

And the Filipinos not only greeted us as liberators, they fought alongside us.

The unpleasantness didn't begin until a while after the victory, when it started to sink in on the locals that we weren't leaving.  That was when the insurgency started that resulted in our killing somewhere over two hundred thousand Filipinos, mostly civilians.  We don't know just how many; we didn't keep count of enemy or civilian casualties.  We did count the 1053 American dead, though.

This completely idiotic notion that we went to war to establish democracy in Iraq simply condemns the Democrats to political impotence.  If W had asked for the freedom to declare war on Saddam to establish democracy in Iraq, how many votes would he have gotten?

We went to war because we were scared, period.  Once we got rid of Saddam and found out that there were no WMD, we accomplished the only real objectives of the war and should have left.

This crap about the need to establish democracy in Iraq simply plays into the hands of neo-con fantasists.

Here's a curious thought: with the American military so completely tied up in Iraq & Afghanistan and the world so anti-American.....might Kim il Jung (or whatever his name is) seriously think about massing his military on the North-South Korean border and then lobbing a few artillary shells into Seoul?

The US is pretty much unable to adequately respond militarily - the key word here being "adequately". Would it be No. Korea's intention to actually invade and defeat So. Korea? No - absolutely (probably) no.

It would be No. Korea's intention to merely humiliate the USA.

How would the USA respond to a serious invasion threat by No. Korea? Threaten a nuclear response? Yeah, the American people would be all in favor of that -- NOT. Would Bush go to the UN for support and assistance? Yeah, John Bolton is GREAT at begging for help. Think other nations would jump in to help us? I'm sure Bulgaria would send 10 - 12 troops to help us out. China would laugh their asses off.

Bottomline -- Bush would end up looking, and perhaps even acting either absolutely batshit crazy.....or completely neutered and powerless.

What a great image for the United States of America.

And what a great way to empower North Korea.

And what another great illustration of the morass Bush has placed us in.

Current policy call for US military providing security while simultaneous training Iraqi military/police while demanding that militias stay off the street.
Are the Iraqi people better off under this combination as compared to simply letting the militias mobilize? After all most of them are under the command of figures high in the current government, and Sadr shows signs of playing ball.
There are tens of thousands of trained Iraq fighters, the problem for the Bush Administration is that were trained by Iranians. Simply turning over local security control to them while making steady progress on withdrawel of our troops would represent a tremendous humiliation for the Bush Administration, but at this point why would or should the Iraqis care about that? Would more or less of them be killed on a daily basis? Would more or less progress be made towards a peaceful Iraq.
This insistence on American know-how, that US truckdrivers add value at $100,000 a year, that US contractors are the best choice for rebuilding schools, this combination of arrogance and greed is what got us in Messopotamia to start with. Why have we simply conceded the argument that US troops are a net security benefit for Iraq to begin with?
There is a lot of hubris built into "<span class="Apple-style-span">conceding defeat is unfathomable - the country would descend into utter chaos and we would betray the genuine Iraqi democrats". You know this exactly how?</span&gt

James of DC: thanks!  On the question of the future size of the US military, I would agree that we ought to be able to get by with a smaller military, but even more with a cheaper military.  This year the US is likely to spend more on "defense" than the rest of the world put together.  Large parts of that go on hugely-expensive high-tech weapons which are just irrelevant to the real problems - e.g. nuclear subs, thousands of strategic nukes, air-superiority fighters which are absurdly far beyond any probable opposition, the expensive and fragile Stryker, Apache helicopters which are alarmingly vulnerable to low-tech "helicopter ambush" tactics of massed small-arms ground fire.  It seems to me the right level of defense spending would be around $150-200B/year, not over $500B/year.  And that would force us to think about what are our real priorities.

The real problem with the recruitment/retention crisis is that you lose the smart guys, and end up with an army of people who just aren't that good.  But it is something of an opportunity, as you suggest: if Democrats commit firmly to the Powell Doctrine of "don't invade without overwhelming force", and recruitment leaves us without overwhelming force, then we'll get a foreign policy which doesn't rely so heavily on force and the threat of force, which I think would be a Good Thing both for the US and the rest of the world.

I have a better plan:

 All of the above, plus give every Iraqi child a pony.

But seriously, the numbers don't add up.  All Iraqi forces are heavily infiltrated by insurgents and can't be trusted.  The borders are much too long to be secured by the troops available. You can't "secure the oil fields" because the pipelines are long and completely vulnerable.  Electricity and water supply are worse now than under Saddam, and nothing is being fixed because of poor security. Iraqis aren't going to give up their weapons, because there's too much crime.  Try it and you'll have 10M insurgents instead of 100K.

Anonoymous Hero: you seem to have changed your tune since just a few posts upthread where you said, "Yes there is a plan for victory, and it's working." 

Which is it?