The same tired and tiresome arguments, leading nowhere but further into hell. Every day we stay means more deaths. That's all. 
Anyone who suggests otherwise is simply deluded.
The US invasion has set off a civil war that the US military cannot contain. Get out now, and let the Iraqis sort out their own probems.
Then get to work on an energy policy that will end US dependence on foreign oil as quickly as possible.

d52boy is absolutely correct: the similarities to Vietnam are striking, particularly the arguments being used to justify the ongoing occupation.  
To say "Because we are there, we must stay there" is only to say that we still believe we can guide the country's government, apparently by force, and to accept the economic fantasy that the Bush administration has about Iraq as a moral imposition.  We can leave now, or we can leave in ten years.  Considering the escalating cost, in lives and dollars, the sooner the better.   

As an independent, I'm not so concerned about what the Democrats do, but here's what I'd suggest for the country:

1. Leave it to Bush to continue to flounder in Iraq. He got us into the mess, so let him get us out of it.  I don't think there is a good plan for Iraq at this point, so offering any plan means offering a bad plan. As I've said before, some mistakes are correctible and others are not. Iraq is one of the uncorrectible mistakes. If I were forced to take a position, I'd suggest getting the Iraqis through the constitutional convention and then leaving, though there are lots of potential risks for this approach.

2. Focus on the future. How do we prevent disasters like this from occuring again? One way is to insist on stronger Congressional oversight of the executive branch. We need better Congressional and public debate before wars begin. We can't have ideologues in the Pentagon (like Rumsfeld, Perle and Wolfowitz) making decisions for us in secret. Congress needs to be more involved in debating the reasons for war and needs to take their constitutional responsibility to declare war more seriously. We need to carefully examine how the Iraq decision was made and what went wrong. The Republicans are unlikely to take the lead in this, so the Democrats should be insisting loudly on the need to reform the process to prevent future disasters like Iraq from occuring again.

3. Focus on the cost of war and the defense bureaucracy in general. We need to get these costs under control before they bankrupt us. A radical re-look at our defense policy and priorities is essential to the fiscal health of the country and to our future ability to conduct foreign policy. Bush's doctine of pre-emptive war needs to be re-examined in light of Iraq. Our complete lack of preparedness for the occupation also needs to be looked at. We need to understand better what our defense priorities are and how much money is sensible to invest in defense. And once again, Congress needs to step up to the plate. Too much is being left in the hands of the executive branch--and I'm sorry, they have proved themselves to be rather incompetent. We need better leadership and we should be demanding it from both Congress and the President. They are failing us right now.

alexander m, frankly, were it not for the potential reprecussions to the iraqi people and throughout the middle east, i suspect virtually all dems (and many republicans) would be in favor of withdrawal now. just because ivo didn't say it doesn't mean it's not there as an issue.

but a more important matter - as some of us tried to point out during the period when the mission was supposedly regime change, not wmds or democracy-building - is that america doesn't have an infinite supply of blood and treasure to expend on making other people's lives better. We are, after all, hollowing out our military and borrowing every dollar as it is to pursue this fiasco....

Ivo's list of options is good, but incomplete.  It seems that no good options remain only because we haven't been honest about what we need to help Iraqis--and their Arab brethren--achieve. 

We can admit what should have been obvious from the beginning, and recalibrate accordingly.  From day one, it was clear that we were committing to a multi-generational investment in Iraq, along the lines of those that we made in Germany, Japan, and South Korea.  The Arab world has been backsliding at least since the fall of the Ottoman Empire (its backsliding before then was part of a broader trend).  Arabs remain torn between the "pan" dreamers who see Sunni Arab hegemony from Gibraltar to the Shatt-al-Arab as a birthright, and the "nationalists" who simply want to claim their own piece of Middle Eastern real estate and integrate it into the Westphalian system.  Most recent leaders have paid lip service to the former while drifting towards the latter.  (Like the 19th century pan-Slavic and pan-Germanic movements, pan-Arabism has assumed many forms.  Some of its forms have nominally include Shiites, Christians, and non-Arab Sunnis, but it remains at heart a Sunni Arab movement).

In 1990, Saddam arose as the first significant pan-Arab leader since Nasser.  His invasion of Kuwait should have forced the rest of the Arab world to choose between myth and reality, but the "international community," led by Bush & Baker, let them off the hook.  Instead, the "Arab street" seethed over its own impotence and increased its blame on the West for its troubles.

When Iraq hit our collective radar screens again in 2002, we had spent more than a decade preveting the global liberalization wave from taking root in the Arab world; we had frozen its suicidal mythology in place until it exploded in our faces.  The challenge now is to help the Sunni Arab world defuse its own mythology before it proves as destructive to Arabs as Hitlerism was to Germans and Stalinism was to Russians (set aside the unfortunate outsiders who fell within their sway). 

Had anyone been honest enough about the task we were undertaking, we could have had an honest debate about  its merits, but relatively few were willing to  be that straight.  We had--and have--to help an entire region deprogram itself before it repeats 1914-53 Europe with better weapons.  The Bush adminsitration entered with only enough troops to depose Saddam--nowhere near enough to do what needs to be done.

So where does that leave us now?   From a military posture, we clearly need more troops.  We also need less gentle rules of engagement.  Our actions in Falluja in April 2004 were unconscionable; a tough military response could have flattened the insurgency then and there.  As we find successive hotbeds, we need to flatten them.  Evacuate whoever you can, and then behave as if the absence of a clear victory is a loss--because it is.  The insurgency will end if and only if the retrograde Sunni element believes that the U.S. is bigger than they are, stronger than they are, and as committed to victory as they are.

We also need to change our diplomacy.  The majority of Iraqis are not Sunni Arabs.  Yet, we keep looking for "help" to "allies" who dread nothing more than losing a key player in their dream of Sunni hegemony.  It is hard to imagine anyone whose interestes were more antithetical to those of the U.S. than Lakhdar Brahimi, an old Arab League apparatchick.  We must work with Shiite and Kurdish leaders to ensure that they develop a system respectful of minority rights--and then explain to our Arab "allies" that Iraqi Sunnis must participate fully as the minority that they are.

So, short answer:  What next?  Admit the nature of the challenge; commit to multi-generational engagement; fight to win; and leverage diplomacy to server long-term goals. 

alexander m, at risk of saying the same sorts of things back and forth, the point i was trying to make with the comment that supplies aren't infinite is that the odds of the american people running out of patience long before we can be sure that the iraqi people won't end up victimized for decades to come are not good. If the sole indicator is what's right for the iraqis, we will never know enough to guage whether leaving or staying is the better course.

Sadly, the indicator has to be what is right for the american people and if that means harm to the iraqis....

I agree but think that we should develop the arguments more out of respect for our colleagues.  The reference to Vietnam is on point because all of the arguments against getting out then are being recycled now.  The United States ultimately did leave Vietnam ignominiously in the eyes of most observers then and of historians now and survived well.  We should be pointing to the U.S.'s growing economic relations with Vietnam as a rebuttal to those who see nothing but disaster if the U.S. pulls out.  
In intentional contrast to Vietnam, we need to offer asylum, citizenship, job training etc. to 50-100,000 Iranians who want to leave.  We should leave some forces in the north to protect the Kurds.
The United States must pressure Israel to move forward with a viable two-state solution to the Israel-Palestine blood feud.
The Democrats must have a credible long-term energy policy that moves the country off oil and carbon.  The only realistic alternative is nuclear power while research on "clean" coal and other forms of energy continues.  Current nuclear plant design is much better.  The law should be changed to recycle nuclear waste (which creates plutonium) to partially "solve" that problem.
No an ideal program, but a pragmatic and executable one that can be explained to the American people.

As someone who, back in March 03, predicted pretty much everything that's happening now (as opposed to the court geniuses, Lewis, Marr, Perle, and Wolfowitz, who got pretty much everything wrong), I'll make another prediction: every day we stay will get worse!  

So, Biden's position is predicated on the belief that the 0.000001% chance that things will get better is worth another 700 US lives. (I hope he can argue that in front of the GIs' parents.)

The constitution + elections, etc, are now destined to be a sham. Worse than that, they're the surest to turn everyone in Iraq off the idea of democracy for half a century. 

The US presence allows the Shias and Kurds to play political games they could never get by if they were on their own. Meanwhile as long as the Sunni insurgents can claim they're fighting the occupiers, the population won't turn against them.

Finally, talk of all-out civil war if the US were to leave is highly speculative. This is not the Balkans: Sunnis and Shias are not mortal enemies: They intermarry a lot. . (In Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, now that's a different story).  Saddam tried to create a wedge, and the Brits before him, and so yes there's bad blood as a result but the true cleavages in Iraq are tribal, not religious. OK, it'll be very ugly. But what do you call what's happening now?

I know it's hard for us to believe that we are worse than useless. But right now we are. 

.  .  .  readers  .  .  .  want to know what Democrats should be pushing for.  It's a fair question.  Ivo Daalder

No; it's not.  It's a dumb question; in fact, it's the dumbest question Democrats could be asking themselves at any time prior to April 2008.

It's the Repug's war; they have the executive, legislative, and post-Padilla, it looks like the judicial branches of government; it's up to them to figure out how to extricate themselves from what may turn out to be a political disaster for them.

Just as we shouldn't help Bush privatize Social Security by offering our own plan, we shouldn't be pulling the Repug's chestnuts out of the fire in Iraq. 

Ellen: what about you? Don't you want to know?

Whether you're a Democrat, Republican. Libertarian, Communist, Socialist, Whig or Tory, you should be thinking about what should be done regarding Iraq.  You should be thinking about it because tens of thousands of people are dying there, and millions more suffering there, becuase of this war.  If Democrats were to take the ostrich-like position that consists in saying "we're not going tosu7ggest anything or advocate anything or work toward anything with respect to Iraq, because its not our mess; we didn't create it, so let the Republicans handle it", they would identify themselves as cowards and moral infants, unfit to be handed the reins of power in this country or anyother country.  Fortunately, there is no real prospect that any sizeable collection of grownup Democrats will take that line.

The world is always filled with a stinking pile of messes that were not created by the people who find themselves living among them. The adult response to that basic human condition is to accept the piles that you find as our own unfortunate challege in life, and to take responsibility for contibuting to digging out.

Daniel, I'm not going to answer, because I think that the false basis of your question is more important. You implicitly accept the fantasy that we went into Iraq (at least in part) to free the Iraqi people from Saddam's tyranny. 
Au contraire. The US government has never given a good goddam about the suffering of Iraqis under Saddam or anyone else. Bush went into Iraq to prove he was better than his daddy and to secure control of strategic oil supplies. 
We are not in Iraq to fight the bad guys. We ARE the bad guys.

     In response to Ivo Daalder's post, I provide three things that I think we should be pushing for.
1. Bring our National Guardsmen/Women home gradually. I think that many of them are there unnecessarily, and simply are not proficient (through no fault of their own) enough to maintain in a combat zone for extended periods of time. I take nothing away from the good things they have brought to the mission, I specifically have in mind the soldiers trained in logistics and combat service support. They are not trained for many of the missions and danger they are faced with, and it is in my mind, downright criminal to send troops knowingly unprepared into harms way ( not talking about body armor here). Instead, we should utilize our best troops (Rangers, Marines, 18th Airborne Corps, 1st Cav, etc.) to conducting this mission on their own terms and with the support of more, not less, private contractors. These private contractors are making big bucks, paid for by us, so let's make all of them work a little harder for this money. Using untrained troops and putting them in unnecessary harm is pointless and is currently killing our recruiting. As far as the remaining troops, let's utilize them in a more variety of ways other than zipping around in humvees that may or may not be armored, dodging IED's, VBIED's, etc.
2. Realign our troops outside of most cities, except for Baghdad, into the hinterlands. This lowers the occupier profile that we have manifested, and draws 'fire' away from Iraqi civilians. If they want a fight, they can bring it to our bases. We can assist the Iraqi police and army through close air support and special operations 'eyes-on' that remain in the cities for surveillance, raids, and intelligence collection. This realignment I think also restores some dignity to Iraqis, as they won't have to (less often, anyways) stay 50 meters back from US humvees, or be searched in the middle of the night by a bunch of pumped up American soldiers that do not speak a lick of Arabic. People will say that this will provide the grounds for all-out strife to take place in the cities, but I think not. And at this point, isn't it worth a shot?
3. Sell the troops that we do bring home, and the troops we are trying to recruit out of high school, on the idea of learning Arabic, Urdu, or any other language that may come in handy one day as a soldier (Korean?). Languages are a 'technical skill', and also bridge the gap that divides us from the Iraqi populace. I have a friend who served in Kirkuk, Iraq with the 173rd Airborne Brigade, who had to arrest his interpreter for spying. If we had our own, would we need someone that may be compromisable? Selling our new soldiers, and even the guardsmen/women that we bring home, on the idea that learning Arabic can be worth their while is worth our while. Our lack of Arabic-speaking troops is appalling. We are, after all, the Iraqis' "guests".
   Our failure on the left is not reliance on simply John Kerry, but on anyone on the left. We should be pushing these ideas onto the Repubican moderates like Senators McCain, Hagel, and now perhaps Voinovich. If we can get the Right to believe that it is their idea and not ours, then we win. After all, this is not about who gets the credit for the winning formula anymore. It is about getting the job done, preventing further loss of American and Iraqi life, and getting our men and women over there home. Chance are we are not and will never get, an Iraqi government suited to our taste. But, if we can get our government, and by government I mean the ones who control it, to focus on what they can control, we have a chance of success. Iraq is not hopeless. There is always tomorrow, and if we on the Left stop 'pissing in the wind' and focus our attention to the ones who will listen and can make a difference, Iraq has a chance. 

Ellen, iIf someone does not offer any suggestions on Iraq because they don't have anything intelligent to offer, that is one thing.  But if someone has some intelligent suggestions to make about Iraq and does not offer them because they want Republicans to burn in the political hell created by the suffering of soldiers and civilians in Iraq, then from that point forward they are, as far as I am concerned, complicit in the carnage.

If I learned of some future Democratic candidate for office in 2008 that he had a plan up his or her sleeve back in in 2005 that could have saved thousands of lives, but that he decided to keep it to himself in order to gain political advantage from further loss of life and devastation in Iraq, that would give me sufficient reason not to vote for that candidate.

And no, I do not distinguish Iraq from Darfur or the Eastern Congo.  If someone has some good ideas to offer on any of these matters, they should offer them.

The question was not so much whether the Iraqi people are evil. Merely that we, in theory, did not go to war with them, and thus they have not been defeated.

Germany and Japan were defeated and their systems built upon but recreated by the presence of Military and other Allied forces.

I was asking whether limited wars aiming to achieve rather maximal aims are likely to fail.

I do not assume that the United States is particularly more evil or inept than anyone else. If anything I believe that Bush and his crowd have greatly perverted the core values of the United States.

Before the election the idea was floated of training Iraqi security elsewhere so that they were not sitting ducks while being trained and they would return to Iraq ready to perform. Of course I know that even the best trained troops would need time to acclimate to the actual situation on the ground, but still, this idea sounds like a pretty good one to me.

Any likelihood of that happening?

Yes, what about changing our mission to getting out of there?

The problem is that the present Iraqi government, which is propped up by and to a large extent a creature of the US, does want us there.  It's the Iraqi people who overwhelmingly want us out.  
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    On another thread I made a comment about Iraq that was fragmented in several pieces, due to computer problems.  Here is a reconstituted "repost" of that material:

But how can we get out?  Well, "we" who want to get out need to pursue a program as well as a strategy geared to that end, one that does not ignore the needs for Iraq's future, but doesn't stay their (indefinitely, in practice) until there is what the US deems 'adequate' stability.  So several paths must be pursued:

    The peace movement must organize to build up a broad, permanently structured power base, starting with a group that canvasses nationally (and in other countries) door-to-door for donations and members.  I have outlined the idea of such an organization ("PeaceAmerica" or whatever) at length elsewhere.  In the supplemental posts I will link to that (it's on the discussion blog)

     Those in other countries especially can focus on getting their governments, in France and Spain and elsewhere to support the second key ingredient, namely

   *A Special Session of the United Nations General Assembly on Iraq, establishing both a permanent organization to outline what needs to be done to assist in Iraq's transition out from under the occupation, to assemble NON-coalition-of-the-willing
members to participate in any necessary transitional peacekeeping forces, as much as feasible from Islamic nations, and to open negotiations with some sort of unified coalition of political representation of the resistance forces.

    *A realistic outline of what elements are needed is also something that Iraqi politicians who aren't stooges or clients directly or indirectly of the US, and NGOs as well as other countries would have to develop constantly.   And in the US, a Congressional peace caucus of hardline supporters of the peace movement and this UN process would be formed.  In particular, the key is to pressure the giant Democratic Party 'elephant' to eschew the imperialist course they are following, and demand peace, and to mobilize public opinion so it matters, and Bush couldn't just dismiss it.


        These are some of the elements of what needs to be done to establish a peace.  With a well organized Peace movement, outlined at greater length elsewhere, and a Congressional Peace Caucus, domestic pressure on the US government would be maximized.  But the crucial element is bringing the UN into play, and the mutual strengthening of the efforts based in the General Assembly Special Session on one hand, and domestic US opposition on the other.

Here is an outline in greater detail what that Special Session might involve:

     *A demand that the Iraqi government hold a national referendum on the occupation forces staying at the next national election, threatening decertification and other measures if the new government doesn't hold one.  The withdrawal need not be immediate if the referendum passes, but measures to that end would be the next step

       *Putting together a number of countries none from the coalition-of-the-willing, to supply peacekeepers for the transition, with as much participation by other Islamic nations as feasible.  This force would NOT come in as an occupying force but as peacekeepers, based on negotiations with the resistance

        *Opening up serious negotiations with some sort of collective political representation of the resistance forces.  Dialogue with various forces in the Baghdad government would also continue, with an eye to an agreement, brokered by figures and nations as the situation requires.  The very process would change the political landscape, as the resistance would have to think not just about fighting the Americans etc but about governance issues and demands that they collectively hold.

        *Making clear that the Iraqi government is to be supported fully by the international community if they choose to nationalize their oil production, and/or if they choose to ban any or all coalition-of-the-willing nations and businesses from trade and from contracts.  Somewhere along the line, a system allowing regional representation (like we have in the US, in structure) so that the Sunni region would be represented substantially in every major decision.  This representation could supplement the existing at-large system.  

          *Supplementing the security force gathered with pledges from nations like France, Germany, China and Japan, for money to finance the reconstruction of Iraq.  Clearly the US won't finance anything not out of the Pentagon etc and won't consider paying reparations, so the other nations have to pick up the slack (which could easily total over $100 billion).  Note though that all these countries desperately need oil, and have an interest in substantial participation in the reconstruction process.  They might also use it to spur employment in Germany, Japan, and France etc.

          *Making clear the conditions that need to be met for an end of the peacekeeping phase.  There would always be provisions for regular WMD inspections as a condition of the money, as well as full cooperation in anti-terrorism efforts.  The money coming in could be a powerful lever against fragmentation, and a more federal system in Iraq would help too, allowing regions enough autonomy that they aren't grabbing for national power.  Only the profoundest respect and centrality (though not necessarily primacy) of the role of Islam and Islamic nations is also key.  The role of Iran would be permissible, but obviously have to be limited (which Iraqis almost certainly prefer anyway).  Some provision for forgiveness of Iraq's debts to willing nations as well as those not in a position to enforce payment. (ie not the US, since the US will demand everything and provide little, until the situation becomes so embarassing that -- hopefully under a new administration -- it is difficult NOT to fork up the money.

   Note that this is NOT a demand for immediate, unconditional and total withdrawal.  It is an internationally negotiated and supervised transition, that simply excludes the coalition-of-the-willing(C-o-W) ASAP.  The permanent bases would be closed down or handed over to the new Iraqi government.  Oil experts would be sent, to assist Iraqi experts in the area, at no charge.  China would be drooling for oil contracts, so money should start in a big way as soon as stability is achieved.  The money incentive for Iraqis, with the C-o-W excluded from the picture until they feel they want any back, by referendum, would be a powerful force for stability.  There wouldn't be the reason and motive for continued chaos, indeed at this point truly except for a small number of troublemakers with no popular support, unlike now

Only placing the entire Iraq enterprise under UN blue hat control offers any prospect of success.  Only such a structure will enlist the support of the world's powers and ensure that no one believes they are being shut out of a role in rebuilding not just Iraq but the Middle East. 

No American politician can offer such a proposal because the radical reactionaries will flame about "selling out America" and that the person making the proposal will have lost Iraq -- just like China in 1948.  The Democrats remember how they were smeared by the likes of Nixon and McCarthy, which suggests why they have not offered viable, actionable alternatives.  Why climb into the sewer with the vermin from the other party voluntarily?

Vietnam, again, comes to mind. Remember "Vietnamization"? Remember how, mysteriously, the South Vietnamese troops were hapless, spineless buffoons while their Viet Cong brothers were relentless, utterly devoted, and indefatigable? 
It's over already. Done.

The stuff about training Iraqi security forces is really dumb.  Military efficiency doesn't translate into political reliability.  It is really hilarious to hear the arguments over numbers.  Brief history:  Iraq was governed by military coup from about 1957 through Saddam.  i don't think the end strength or level of training for the Iraqi Army ever meant much during this period.

I don't understand what we think we're doing in Iraq at the present time.  I sure wish the President would articulate something that was measureable.  He either knows what he wants and doesn't think he can be candid or he believes his own rhetoric, I don't know what is worse. 

It is starting to seem a lot like Vietnam to me - no definition of a win, Army being ruined, domestic and international political trouble and motivated opponents.  Does that make W the latter-day LBJ?

The democrats have to come up with a plan.  Not just on Iraq but on how to repair the damage from the Bush years.  The damage needs to be succinctly described under the general heading that the country is in very bad shape.  We are hollowing out our economy, we have an unsustainable foreign policy based on the profoundly undemocratic idea of pre-emptive military action (and a military that cannot perform that job successfully), a rapidly shrinking set of civil rights, no environmental policy at all with real storm clouds on that horizon, a bankrupt education system, a bankrupt health delivery system, a political establishment deeply compromised by a growing corporate/lobbyist stemroller, and all of this is going to turn us into something very different thanb what we used to be.  The democrats need a plan alright, and if its put in the context of what's good for ALL of us then we just might get elected.  

While we have an obligation to the Iraqi people, it isn't clear to me that staying on for security reasons is a clear requirement.  Several really bad possibilities come to mind:

(1) Things degenerating into us protecting a politically impotent and unpopular government. 
(2) The presence of our forces not actually improving the secuity situation, and instead becoming the focus of an unstable security situation.
(3) "Asked" and then doing guard duty on the oil wells and pipelines.  OK, this wouldn't be all bad, but I cannot see this being a win politically or militarily.

Not to say this has to be the situation, but these are real possibilities.

I personally have never understood why we couldn't just distribute goods, money and jobs.  Seems to me that this might do the most good of all, and yet we seem to be making a total hash of that.

Anon. TPMCafe Denizen wrote:

The answer from international experience is that the more wealthy the country, the more likely it's people will want liberal democracy.  Democracy has a bad track record in poorer countries or those with collapsing economies, e.g., Germany after WWI, Russia, Zimbabwe.

I am not sure how true it is that wealthy countries want a liberal democracy because it is not obvious that the American people want one – and American politicians certainly do not.  Much was made in the aftermath to the referendums in France and The Netherlands that the EU suffers from a democratic deficit.  This is even truer of the US House of Representatives which is no longer a functioning democratic institution.  In the last election only 2% of the districts changed party and half of these only changed because the districts had been gerrymandered specifically to accomplish this change.  The 2% figure compares unfavorably with the equivalent figure of 10% in the last British election.

Gerrymandering is nothing new in American politics, and the democracy functions fairly well most of the time.  The fact that few seats in the house changed party in 04 doesn't show that democracy fails at the national level.  Is it the case that most voters wanted a change in their representative's party and were frustrated?  That's when democracy has failed.  in light of how people were voting I doubt that was the case. 

Britain had a big shift in the Commons because labor isn't as popular post-Iraq, and it doesn't mean that democracy is more live there than here.  We've had big shifts in the US when there were big changes in party popularity; the republicans were the beneficiaries of the last big change in 1994, and no amount of Democratic monkeying with the rules could keep their house majority.  Eventually the tide will shift, and the Republicans will be tossed from power.  When that will happen is the question.