It will not work to take a passive approach ot the end of the war in Iraq. In politics as in any form of conflict it is essential to exploit available openings. The objective of the Dems should be to relieve Bush of the role of Commander in Chief. Our moron president should be given a simple choice: he can live out his last two years as president and try to salvage some dignity or he can face impeachment and a subsequent visit to the Hague. If he wants to avoid total disgrace, he must turn over control of the Pentagon and the Iraq war to a bipartisan committee. The committee will nominate a Secretary of Defense and oversee all military activities. To avoid a similar fate the Vice President must agree to cease communications with all Government agencies and to assume no duties beyond the minimal responsibilities mandated by the constitution. The objective is not to extract revenge, but to prevent a stupid person from doing further harm and to break the control of his handlers. Further concessions can also be extracted to obtain full cooperation with unimpeded investigations into corruption, incompetence and malfeasance. A separate bipartisan committee can be established to handle any "presidential" appointments and to oversee the removal of stupid, corrupt and incompetent appointed officials.

More killing, please!

He is not a new Ronald Reagan...

You don't think he'll match the record of 32 criminal convictions for administration members? Yeah, you're probably right that the timing will be tight, but we can try.

Suppose Abizaid and Casey put in the formal request for more troops that they were hinting about before the election.

Would Democrats in Congress vote to authorize it and thus hitch themselves to responsibility for the war?

Or would they vote to refuse it and thus take responsibility for the defeat?

Or would they split over it with neither wing being able to defeat a Republican Presidential candidate in 2008?

I'm not an American so maybe I've missed something obvious about how the Democrats in Congress would react and how large sections of the party base would react.

But I would assume there is simply no way to avoid a split between a large section of the party base and a large section of its leadership on such a request for more troops.

So I am wondering whether the triumphalist tone that "It is at an end" is based on simply not even thinking about whether the military is going to ask for more troops.

Seems obvious that Stirling and most others here would oppose such a request and would be part of the large section of the party base that would oppose it and can easily reply with enormous amounts of argument and passion in favour of that position.

But that's not the question I'm raising, so please don't respond on those lines.

The issue I am raising is that Stirling's analysis does not seem to take into account the possibility of the Democrats splitting over a request for more troops.

If so, is that based on a belief that the Congressional leadership would agree with large sections of the party base and remain unified in voting not to authorize it?

Or is it based on a belief that no such request is conceivable?

Or is it based on simply not thinking about it?

I suspect the latter.

"That's not compatible with exiting Iraq according to your time table Mr. President".

There aren't the votes in the House or Senate for more troops.

Stirling Newberry http://www.bopnews.com

Funny, not one mention of oil. There will be no withdrawing. We will not be leaving without knowing for DEAD certain that the Iraq oil remains firmly in the grip of the US government, er.. Corporations- same thing. Why we went, and why we will stay.

I've been against invasion of Iraq before most people knew there was going to be one.

Let me add to that, I was telling people that Iraq was a done deal before most people knew it was even on the agenda.

Stirling Newberry http://www.bopnews.com

Would Democrats in Congress vote to authorize it and thus hitch themselves to responsibility for the war?

Or would they vote to refuse it and thus take responsibility for the defeat?

Or would they split over it with neither wing being able to defeat a Republican Presidential candidate in 2008?

Avoiding this trilemma is one reason the Democrats must move aggressively to sieze control of the Iraq debate and get out ahead of Bush moves. The message should be something like this "The public has spoken, and it wants the United States to begin the process of exiting Iraq. There are reasonable debates about the timing, sequencing and modalities of our exit. But there is no question that the public is opposed to deepening our involvement, and now wants to move in another direction. We await serious proposals from the White House and Pentagon about exit strategies."

In the last few days we have heard many counsels of passivity from the pundits, suggesting the Democrats should lay low on Iraq and turn to other priorities. This is unacceptable. The Democrats now run the legislative branch of the government, and so the war is now half theirs. Either they begin right away to implement the public will, expressed unequivocally across the country in this election, or they pay the price of betraying the public trust.

I suggest they begin immediately by using their increased media power to communicate with the country by focussing on Iraq casualties - casualties with individual names, families and life stories.

Interesting take. For the past several months, I have had an intuition that Bush would be impeached. It flows from prior intuitions about the extent to which the Administration has manipulated the strategy for victory in Iraq, by means of temporary detours and diversions, for politically expedient motives in its domestic electoral strategy and determination to buy time to keep the facade of victory alive. I'm all but certain that such diversions have been taken many times, and I believe that they have at least not helped the war effort. By now I have a very strong hunch that they have prolonged this war unnecessarily and are a substantial part of the "incompetence" that Bush seems so blithely willing to entertain.

Rove's ambition to create a permanent Republican majority, I believe, has played a huge role in these manipulations. One might think that this is another paranoid fantasy, but there have been way too many coincident developments to explain by chance.

So the question remains, to what extent has Bush been willing to go along with this, and here's the link to impeachment: where his perceived role in history, election by God to wage this war, and sheer addiction to notions of being "the decider" he is delusionary to the extent that means and ends are taken as a whole, the whole being his grandiosity.

The persona of an authoritarian fits perfectly here. And those who are devoted to the man are similarly delusionary. This is a closed family system writ large, and is a narcotic. Denial is a powerful defense, and in Bush's case, I think it is near complete where his war of choice is concerned - the war on terror, as he perceives it, is him and only him.

Wars are mother to so many delusions by so many individuals. I don't think we as Americans, even those who are steadfastly opposed to Bush and his policies, may not want to know what we ought to know, because it will deflate our perceived role in history. But there may be sufficient disillusionment to warrant impeachment.

If there were more troops to send, Bush could send them without further Congressional authorization. The only vote needed would be on the next supplemental appropriation.

The real aim is to separate this president from the exercise of the powers of his office, to pin him like a bug to a piece of fabric. He most of all must be brought to recognize his own impotence and ultimate worthlessness. The symbolism embodied in this will be woven into the American tableau and will strengthen democracy. Accomplishing this will require an alliance with members of the president's party who for their own reasons want to dismember him and the faction that supports him. What I propose is a brass knuckled exercise in bipartisianship and realpolitik.

Yep. Sounds good to me.I am just not certain how we go about 'separating' the CinC from exercising his power as President. Particularly a President, who is hell-bent on concentrating power in the executive branch and who has an atty general who has support his pursuit of unilateral power.  Just what does brass knuckle mean here...are you not being metaphorical and are you suggesting a coup of our own Presidency by the CIA?

While we speak, the president's owners have set up a committee to assume his powers of commander in chief.

Are you referring to the 'daddy to the rescue' efforts surrounding Bush, which has been his lifelong pattern?  Just as Baker and Scowcroft are the families 'consiglires' who have come to move Cheney off the board.  Is Bush going to acquiesce to 'daddy's boys'?  Is Gates the new CinC having once served under daddy?

This sorry excuse for a president will be emasculated. The only question is whether the operation will be performed by the monied interests or by representatives of the people.

Let the neutering begin!!!

My sense is that the numbers of troops that would be needed to "secure" Iraq (speaking in terms of a military operation - whether long-term security there can be achieved militarily is a much better question to ask) are far beyond what we're currently capable of deploying. And given Tuesday's results I think most everyone on the Hill knows that proposing a draft to support the Iraq endeavor would be political suicide. So, my response would be that it's inconceivable that Congress would vote to take the steps necessary to meet the troop request.

Isn't it time to begin the "Who Lost Iraq" discussion? I will take a wild guess and go with Bill Clinton and the latter day Defeatocrats!

"President Cheney"

This is not correct. Impeachment is a majority vote in the House of Representatives, removal requires conviction in the Senate by a 2/3's vote, which is not happening. One must consider real, not fake, consequences for actions.

"From the national security perspective, the Rumsfeld "transformational" policy has arguably weakened our military establishment significantly, posturing it to deal with situations which the Iraq experience has proved obviously false. Democrats in Congress should examine this half-baked policy and make attempts to jettison it in favor of a more realistic defense posture."

A very accurate summary.

Stirling Newberry http://www.bopnews.com

When the pundits find out that they can no longer sound like pundits calling for actively moving in one direction, then their fall back position seems to be calling for a cautious, passive response in the opposite direction.

The leverage comes from the fact that we can hold hearing on the sorry condition of the reserves and the guard, hearings during which the country will hear many heartbreaking stories from the families of the reservists. In the end, Bush will be forced by public pressure to bring them home.

Democrats have an amazing opportunity to change the focus and tenor of the Iraq debate.

Some of the other responses seemed to just be confirmation that Democrats would in fact split over the appropriations required for more troops - mainly by declaring that support for such appropriations would be "inconceivable". I take that sort of position as confirming that the party could not remain united with people who regard each other's views as "inconceivable" working for a common Presidential candidate in 2008.

If I understood correctly, Stirling's response suggests that a sufficient number of Democrats (perhaps with some Republican support) would be able to block the appropriations and that the Democrats who do so would be able to avoid a split with their colleagues who vote in favour by adopting a much more polite stance than "inconceivable" that is less likely to provoke a split.

That more polite stance is That's not compatible with exiting Iraq according to your time table Mr. President.

Now Abizaid and Casey have already signalled that they will be requesting more troops after the elections, and (some) Democrats have been stressing their patriotic support for the military and their contempt for Rumsfeld's failure to provide sufficient troops initially.

So what makes Stirling assume that Bush will make life easier for the Democrats by agreeing to a timetable after having stressed so adamantly his opposition to one up to now?

It hasn't happened yet, and the article Stirling linked to is hardly proof that it will. (It's actually about a timetable for Iraqis assuming command responsibility leaving US troops in a support role rather than a timetable for withdrawing US troops from that support role).

Isn't Stirling's point that agreeing to a timetable for withdrawal would make it easier for Democrats to unite a strong argument that Bush won't be agreeing to any such timetable?

OK, that's one point of leverage, thanks. Are there any others?