Bill Saletan observed a while back that our continuing presence in Iraq likely hinders progress toward that country's self-sufficiency and stability by encouraging dependency of Iraqi elites on the American military for security.  This week in the Atlantic Nir Rosen paints a portrait (subscription required) of an insurgency feeding on a sense of national humiliation and vengeance caused by the very American forces tasked with maintaining order until a native security apparatus is ready to take over.  (This is not a new idea.)  The juxtaposition of these circumstances presents something of a Catch 22:  security will not improve until American forces hand over security functions to native Iraqi forces, but the emerging Iraqi government will not take over security functions so long as American forces remain in Iraq.  Something will have to break the vicious circle if we do not intend to remain in Iraq indefinitely.

Saletan's piece suggests that only when we credibly threaten to leave Iraq will leaders in that country get serious about taking responsibility for their own security.  This would imply that a timetable for withdrawal would be just the thing to spur the development of a real Iraqi security force.  The counterargument, recently raised by Ivo Daalder here at TPM Cafe, is that an artificial timetable "gives the insurgents an incentive to wait us out."  Daalder, following Senator Carl Levin, argues for a sort of reverse-benchmarks approach:  so long as Iraqis appear to be making real progress in the political process, we should stay and support them, but if they fail to reach a political accord, we should leave.  But Senator Levin's argument is a bit more complex:  he proposes that we use the threat of setting a timetable for withdrawal as a tool to get Iraqi elites to meet a political benchmark.  In essence, Senator Levin is taking the central problem of Iraq -- a sizable portion of the population wants us to leave, but the elites that we expect to govern that population want us to stay -- and using it as leverage.  Implementing Senator Levin's plan would require skillful use of both timetables and benchmarks, and will likely require subltle manipulation of each.  For example, a timetable may be a useful incentive if communicated privately to Iraqi elites, but a disaster if insurgents become aware of it before those elites are able to alter their behavior, suggesting that a complex information management strategy -- potentially including substantial use of disinformation -- will be needed.  Perhaps most importantly, such a plan will require a candid recognition by policymakers that our goal in Iraq is not to fight terrorism, not to effect some broad geopolitical realignment, and not to spread democracy to the oppressed corners of the earth.  Our goal at this point must be simply to leave the place in as good a condition as we are able, and to do so as quickly as possible.  Our continued presence there is doing serious injury to the population of Iraq and the stability of the region, to say nothing of our military, our economy, our political process, and our standing in the world.

Altering people's behavior requires application of both carrots and sticks, rather than just one or the other.  It seems fairly clear that the only way to alter the behavior of a large cohort of the Iraqi insurgency is to withdraw completely.  But there should be ways to accomplish such withdrawal that do not leave Iraq in chaos.  It shouldn't be controversial to admit that a sensible Iraq policy has to include both timetables and benchmarks -- and for that matter any other tools at our disposal -- as stabilizing incentives to challenge and assist the elites we expect to govern the war-torn country we are handing over to them.  Iraq has become a hideously complex problem, and it is going to require flexible and creative thinking to get us out of it.  False dichotomies and internal hardening of positions prevent the progressive movement from taking the lead in that kind of thinking, which is precisely what we should be doing.

If I ask my son whether he saw a movie I had forbidden him to watch, and he remains silent, the import of his silence is clear. Indeed, we have on other occasions recognized the significance of silence, saying that "'[f]ailure to contest an assertion ... is considered evidence of acquiescence ... if it would have been natural under the circumstances to object to the assertion in question.'"  526 U.S. 314, 332 (1999) (Scalia, J. dissenting).

Everything from the WSJ's contemptible op-ed this morning to Rep. King's blather on MSNBC to Ken Mehlman's panicked talking points shows that the Republican party, in an effort bordering on self-parody, is closing ranks to commend Rove for his "heroic" act of blowing the cover of a CIA operative responsible for gathering intelligence on weapons of mass destruction (and, incidentally, her front organization and probably everyone who ever came into contact with it--that's what's called "collateral damage").  The clamor to lionize Karl Rove was prophetically anticipated on, of all places, last night's Daily Show.  Given that Tenet got a Medal of Freedom and Rice was promoted to Secretary of State, Jon Stewart reasoned, the only satisfactory honor to Rove for his blow to the national security of the United States would be to elevate him to Chief Justice.

The point here is not that Republicans protect their own.  It's that they are eager to reward people for acts that are directly harmful to national security if those acts have the side benefit of hurting the political opposition.  It's a pathological inversion; instead of using their leverage in the political system to formulate national security policy, Republicans are leveraging national security assets to win political skirmishes.  The epitome of this backwardness is a White House that would cripple the CIA's capability to get good intelligence on weapons of mass destruction in order to win the political debate over a war that ostensibly depended on that very intelligence.  (That same White House would rather let a deadly arch-terrorist go than risk its political cover to wage that same war.)

If there is a lesson to be learned from this shameful behavior, it's that Republican governance has only one aim:  to perpetuate and extend Republican political dominance.  And every Democrat in the country should be making this clear over and over and over every chance they get:  Republicans don't care about your safety.  They don't care about your freedom or anyone else's.  They don't care about stopping terrorism.  They care about coming out on top in partisan political squabbles.  They can't be trusted to keep you safe.