bush-tush & rum-dum can cite polls all they want but young people are not rushing recruiting stations to say the least.  If able bodied people won't join up bush-tush & rum-dum are in trouble.  It looks like young people are voting with their feet by not enlisting in the armed forces.

I don't really think you will make any more significant  upward movement in the polls, although it may eventually creep upwards. As much as many liberals dislike the thrust of Ed Kilgores religious posts, that is the Archilles heal of the neocon war machine. There are to many folk on the otherside that will not budge from their prewar raationales, and so the objective with these people is to outline the ratioanales for withdrawing, which IMHO should center on the economics of staying. Between religious, economic and the continued exposure of mendacity ala DSM pressures, we might not remove the doubt of those bitter enders, but we might remove the certainty of their reasoning in the minds of the public at large.

What is the Bush administration offering that is different from what we are doing now?  Nothing. They talk about staying the course, which leaves us where we are now or likely in a worse spot.  They talk about training the Iraqi army, but that is not going well at all.  Remember Vietnamization?  Iraq and Vietnam are two very different countries, but the parallels are growing as far as the fight goes.  The insurgents will outlast us; no doubt about that.  The question is when does the administration face reality.  I think the American people are finally beginning to come to grips with the real situation in Iraq.

I feel so, so sorry for the Iraqi people. They are going to be screwed. Worse than Saddam? I can't say. It's unlikely he was going to be able to butcher more of his people through wars like the one against Iran or the "cleansing" of Kurds and Shia. Perhaps, there was even an inchoate movement within Iraq which, with U.S. help, could have led to a more gradual overthrow. 

The bottom line: another Guatemala, another El Salvador, another Vietnam. Already, the U.S. is paying for these bloody conflicts through immigration (economic and social refugees, really) and, well, the opportunity costs of having built alliances where now there is much disrtrust. What will the botched liberation of Iraq cost the U.S. in the long run? That's the only question, I think, which should be posed to answer when/how to "bring the troops home." 

You break it, you bought it. There is no return policy for failed states. 

Bush/Rove will do what they've repeatedly done before and move the goal posts.  The second-term goal of Social Security privatization will morph into Social Security & Tax Reform, with Bill Thomas working his typical legislative mischief.  Bush has also yet to fully bludgeon the Dems with Patriot Act II -- how will the Dems, particularly those with 2008 aspirations, respond to another round of "they're not serious about National Security!"?

I also believe there's at least one more major card to be played between now and the summer of 2007, either one that Cheney/Rove are holding for the right moment, or a wild card from another source.  But that's just speculation.  It's conceivable that essentially nothing major occurs as Bush becomes an increasingly lamer duck. 

But even though I'll be glad to see him go much less popular than Clinton and Reagan were at the end of their second terms, it's hard for me to imagine any of the main media outlets daring to refer to Bush as unpopular.

To continue this thread of speculative projection, Bush will fail to achieve anything to push his popularity much higher (though he likely will get some form of tax reform with some minor, non-privatization adjustments to Social Security as well as Patriot Act II), but there's not much solace in that for me.  He's done his damage, and the next president (and maybe the next several) along with the country will have to live with Bush's foreign, budgetary, and environmental legacies.

BTW, Steve, good to see you on an East Coast blog.

I am glad to see these numbers. This war never made sense except as a re-election stunt by Bush. And the meme, pushed so hard by the Republicans, and swallowed whole by most of the lap dog Democrats, that now that we are there we must stay the course, is pernicious nonsense.

There was no insurgency in Iraq before we got there. We created it. It won't end until we leave. We are part of the problem, not the solution.

Politics is war by other means. Iraq was a figment of Britain's imagination. The Kurds will take the peshmerga and the Kirkuk oil and create Kurdistan, to the consternation of Iran and Turkey.

The Shiites and Sunnis will settle old scores, hopefully in a short civil war. We need to pull out, and let a new balance of power develop without our thumb on the scale.

The real polls that count are the ones that show parents are telling their sons and daughters not to join the military.  You can't fight a war without canon fodder.  The politicians in the congress won't approve a draft.

I feel so, so sorry for the Iraqi people. They are going to be screwed. Worse than Saddam? I can't say. It's unlikely he was going to be able to butcher more of his people through wars like the one against Iran or the "cleansing" of Kurds and Shia. Perhaps, there was even an inchoate movement within Iraq which, with U.S. help, could have led to a more gradual overthrow. 

The bottom line: another Guatemala, another El Salvador, another Vietnam.

Sadly, all too true.  And while I'm always happy to see any glimmer of a wisp of a clue that folks might be waking up from the Big Lie, it's hard to feel much satisfaction in what looks like a plausible future:  Bush and his cabal get tarred with their lunatic Iraq policy, but the broader American society uses their guilt to absolve itself.  The administration endlessly lied and fabricated to further its idiotic "strategy", but the fact remains that it didn't take a helluva lot of digging to see that it was lying.  Bad as the current government is, it's really just a symptom of profound rot in our public life.

Almost all of Bush's policies are similar to his Iraq policy.  They are very much of the "make the bottom line look as good as possible this year and we will worry about next year when it comes" Wharton business school approach to life. They favor a seemingly laudable short-term goal (removing an evil dictator, providing tax "relief," giving people more "control over their own retirement") at the expense of creating a huge mess in the future (the current no-win suituation in Iraq, out of control deficits, destroying the social safety net).  The results of this childish I-want-it-and-I-want-it-now approach to governing is becoming clear in the Iraq situation and his poll numbers are reflecting that. Sadly, almost all of his policies have the same problem in taht they are short-sighted and will me real pain and more no-win situations down the road.

Here's the problem.  The Republican rise to power began not with winning, but with losing well (i.e. in a way that satisfies their base and subtlely shifts the "center").  Iraq, tax reduction-fueled deficits, and Social Security are not only short-term, pump-up-the-profits (i.e. election returns) goals; they are also long-term win or lose-well victories for Republicans.  If Republicans keep the White House in 2008, then Iraq, deficits, and entitlements are "crises" that need to be addressed through radical solutions (sound familiar?).  If Republicans lose the White House, then Iraq, deficits, and entitlements are problems that the new Democratic incumbent must address first, before any element of the Democratic agenda can be addressed.  And how will a new Democratic president do this?  Withdraw from Iraq (and be flogged as weak like Carter) or stay the course (and be flogged as indecisive like Johnson).  Increase taxes (and be flogged as a "tax-and-spend liberal") or don't (and be forced to shrink the government like the Republicans want).  Keep entitlements as they are (and face what really is a problem with long-term Social Security and Medicare funding) or change them (and be flogged for touching the third rail, especially now that special interest groups and 527's are all fired up).  The media is so cowed at this point that they will go along with all of this, even if it is hypocritical and contradictory.

Democrats are being put in a box from which there is no escape.  Democrats need to stop the box from getting built.  This is not a box we want to be in.

You may as well invoke the healing powers of the Seashore Fairy.  What spine graft is gonna suddenly give the Dems these powers of righteous truth-telling?  Especially when so many of them rolled over on Iraq in the first place....

Sadly, you may be right on this.  I worry that it when it does come time to clean up the messes that Dems will be blamed for them.  

Responding to an earlier comment, 

>'To substantially increase the number of troops deployed in Iraq would cost more in treasure than the United States can afford and would require a draft. Given that for Republicans holding onto power is more important than winning this war, there will be no draft. Would it be smart for Democrats to demand a draft? The war is increasingly unpopular so the last thing Democrats should do is to try to be bigger hawks than the the Republicans.'

I strongly agree. It was ill-conceived, ill-advised and it's clearly shown that it's a losing battle that is unfortunately failing miserably and costing far too much in lives and spiraling deficits at taxpayer expense (while worsening the situation and prompting talk of cutting social security and education, etc), and lining the pockets of corrupt cronies, while worsening the security and energy situation. It's a blackhole. There's no end in sight. We were not asked (no one was) whether we should go in (this is supposedly a democracy or so I thought and hoped); rather the carriers were already stationed in place and troups deployed ready for 'shock and awe' at a cost of billions without any regard for public opinion, reality or plain, simple common sense or populist possibility. As casualties edge unsettlingly close to nearing 2000 at a cost of hundreds of billions, it's truly an unmitigated mess; IMO it's about time to finally put a stop to this, draw a line in the sand, cut losses, and get out of Dodge. Soon. It keeps getting worse, let's do something right for a change. We were duped and never should have gone there in the first place. Get out now before it gets worse, which it will, is and has been so it's time to believe it and face reality.

Folks may have already seen this, but if you haven't both atrios.blogspot.com and dailykos have interesting posts on the draft and downing street memo re Iraq worth checking out...

Re: the German army comment.

Not even close to comparable. The German army was done in the way most armies that marched against Russia failed, hostile geography and weather. Hitler also had the western front and a resource-robbing, soul-destroying genocide, not to mention maniacal obsessions, that doomed his cause. That being said, if the entire German war machine had been thrown at Russia without the distractions of the Western Front or Hitler's insanity, then the outcome of the Eastern Front might have come out differently. So more troops might well have helped, contrary to your analogy.

Why more troops?

Please understand that I never thought we should be where we are, but we have kicked over a hornets' nest and I don't think we can go over there, trash their country, loose the demons of civil war, and then run home. I know they want us to go, I would too if I were them, but we do have an interest in a peaceful Iraq and we cannot leave them as they are.

As for Peacekeepers -- great idea, but first you have to have peace. Peacekeepers without peace are innocent bystanders and all but useless. There is no peace in Iraq and, IMHO, won't be with the current level of troops we have in place.

How many is enough? I don't know. If we'd gone in correctly, I think we should have had at least twice the troops and different priorities. We should have secured the ammo dumps and corralled all military age males. I watched video shot by embedded reporters showing Republican Guards in civvies packing up and heading for the hills. While our guys watched. Somebody ordered them to let the Republican Guard remainders get away. I'd love to get that guy under oath.

We should have had sufficient troops to provide for the military needs as well as police needs of the Sunni Triangle at least. I don't know what that number is but I do know it was more than we went in with.

Now, things are a lot worse than when we first went in. We've been all but hunkered down with too few troops while the insurgency has been getting stronger and better organized. (Shh, don't tell Cheney.) If we'd had enough troops to begin with we might have been able to nip the insurgency in the bud before it got a foothold. But we didn't. It is clear that we do not have the critical mass necessary to break out of this deteriorating stand-off. I imagine the total number needed is somewhere north of 400K men and women. We need to smother them like a blanket and provide the security necessary to begin fixing what we've broken.

And, yes, it will probably take a draft. I don't know how it would play politically -- the politics of it don't seem as important as whether it is needed or not. Bush has gotten us into a pretty mess. He is not the last president who will have to deal with a chaotic Iraq.

I don't expect to see us increase the troop levels, however, because I don't think Bush really cares whether we fix Iraq or not. If it gets too much hotter, he might discover someway to declare victory and skulk home. But I really think that we are in for more of the same for the foreseeable future. But don't worry, they're in the last throes. We're winning.

Yes, epistemology is correct IMO...

"I know they want us to go, I would too if I were them..."

That's right -- WE NEED TO LEAVE. period.

"...it will probably take a draft."

You've just made the case why. I rest my case. 

"I don't know how it would play politically..."

We need to respect the desires of the American and Iraqi people, the political process and the profound, tremendous cost in human lives, a spiraling deficit, plunging international opinion in the world community (esp since our presence has  ironically made things worse and more dangerous) and

DEMS + DRAFT = SUICIDE 

Americans and gop knows this which is why folks are voting with their feet... 

"the politics of it don't seem as important as whether it is needed or not..."

Who decides this? There's a reason for our Republic--We live in a Democratic society, not a dictatorial military regime where military necessity is the only consideration dictating policy. And I think many throw around rhetoric claiming to not consider politics meant precisely to manipulate circumstances for political gain. The politics of Iraq and a draft are a lose-lose for all. The American and Iraq people, as well as those in the international community, deserve much better than this line of reasoning. This true blue dem, and I think many others from both parties, take issue in a big way...this kind of talk is no help IMHO.

Before Bush critics rush for the exits, we should recall that what is happening in Iraq today is exactly the outcome we predicted for a hasty invasion with shallow international support and fuzzy objectives. Is a hasty withdrawal with shallow international support and fuzzy objectives any more likely to be in America's national security interest? Of course not.

The Duke argued before the war that the United States should build a strong international coalition with clearly defined objectives and the resources necessary to achieve them. That's still the right approach. But Democrats are beginning to sound a lot like Trent Lott and Tom Delay criticizing Clinton's policy in the Balkans, driven more by politics than by our national interest.

Our national interest lies with the Iraqi leaders who are now struggling to write a constitution. Tom Friedman offers a note of caution:

Maybe it is too late, but before we give up on Iraq, why not actually try to do it right? Double the American boots on the ground and redouble the diplomatic effort to bring in those Sunnis who want to be part of the process and fight to the death those who don't.

Doubling American boots on the ground might be political suicide now, but a stronger coalition force would help stabilize a fragile situation and make Americans on the ground safer. The great tragedy of Bush's Iraq policy is that he squandered America's willingness to sacrifice too early in the game. By failing to work with our allies as true partners (as Clinton did in the Balkans, and as Bush I did in 1990-91), our allies don't "own" the problem and they and finding it easier to walk away. The result is that Americans are paying most of the price, and it shows in the polls. My hope is that it is not too late to build support at home and abroad for a long-term solution that honors the lives already lost.

-- The Duke 

"In this situation -- which is the political and military reality -- I believe the U.S. would be best served if it grasped the nettle and stopped pouring blood and treasure after sunk costs.  Time to leave."

Thank you. Outstanding suggestion. I wholeheartedly agree. Very nice post...