Ivo raises the need for an Iraq Plan B at a particularly crucial moment. Unless there's a viable, credible alternative strategy we'll either be stuck with the Bush one or risk resorting to getting out and worrying about the consequences later, a la Vietnam 1975-Lebanon 1984-Somalia 1993.

One key part of developing a Plan B in a serious way is for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to initiate a major and high profile set of hearings.  

Repeatedly in our history this committee has brought policy focus and political weight to major foreign policy issues at crucial moments. It has done so in ways that have contributed to some of our major successes, as with the Marshall Plan and NATO at the beginning of the Cold War, as well as helping us address major failures such as Vietnam. While it already has had plenty of hearings on Iraq, these largely have been part of the normal reporting and consultation processes.

We are at a point where we need more than that. The best case scenario on the Iraqi constitution is that there's agreement next week on a piece of paper that carries that title, but will paper over so many fundamental issues that it will not be something on which a stable political system can be constituted. At the same time the security situation is growing worse not better. Among Iraqis the dominant sentiment combines outrage against the insurgents for their wanton violence and anger at the United States for not preventing it. And the Iraq link to global terrorism that wasn't there pre-2003 is there now, in ways that have endangered not enhanced the security of Americans, Europeans and others.

Here at home there are increasing signs of reaching a tipping point in public opinion; poll numbers like the 61% disapproval in this week's Newsweek poll are pretty chilling. The President keeps talking about resolve; the public understands that, but wants results. The issue is not just the will to stay the course--it also is whether the policies we are staying with are sound enough and solid enough to succeed. The public is not infinitely spinnable. They don't think we're succeeding in Iraq because we're not. Only a policy that genuinely does better at the reality of winning and not just the image of winning has a chance of winning back public support.

Is such a policy possible at this point? Can Plan A still work? We need to hear what the Bush administration has to say about this, systematically, seriously, minimizing spin, maximizing substance and strategy. We also need to hear from others in government and out, whether with alternative Plan A ideas for how to stay in and succeed, or on a Plan B of how to get out and contain losses if not succeed. Sure, there's some of this analysis and discussion in the press, in policy publications, on blogs. But there's no forum in our political system with the visibility, prestige and seriousness of purpose of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Chairman Senator Richard Lugar and Ranking Member Senator Joseph Biden have been one of the few bipartisan pairs to preserve comity and commitment to policy amidst all the partisan sniping. We need their further leadership, and we need it now.