It's only fair -- Bush and the Republicans have got us this far in Iraq, so the Democrats should come up with a plan to take us the rest of the way (even though they have no way to implement any such plan, and conditions may have changed dramatically when and if they are in such a position).

I dropped the eggs! I was trying to make an omelette! I made a mess! Come and clean it up for me! Now! Whaaa!

What Dems really need to get hip to and quick is the only way forward is to hold those responsible to account.

The end should be: "to blame Democrats when they're unable to produce yet another one after three years of Republican Party mistakes. That makes no sense."

Al,
Before you get rolling, please define "success in Iraq".

Also, are you paid by any agent of the Republican Party and/or the Scaife Foundation? If so how much and under what terms?

Thanks.

Cranky

"...the possibility of federalism and partitioning — an idea that's been floating around liberal foreign policy circles for the past couple of years but has gone nowhere because it has no traction either among Republicans or among Iraqis themselves."

Which Iraqis? The Kurds? The Shiites?

The only Iraqis with whom federalism and probably even partition (even for the Kurds) doesn't have traction are the Sunnis, a certain percentage of whom will accept nothing short of a unified Iraq under their dictatorial control. But since that unified Iraq under Sunni control is not going to happen doesn't it make more sense not to cave into the demands of armed thugs, and simply go about the business of devolving power or partitioning the country without their consent.

America may not have enough troops in Iraq to prevent men from driving trucks into crowds of civilians and blowing up several hundred people at a time, but we do have enough troops in Iraq to help relocate Sunnis in Shiite areas to Sunni areas, and likewise with the other ethnic groups. And once the lines of the map are redrawn the dream of a united Iraq will begin to fade. Sunnistan (of all the three new countries) may be quite a mess for some time to come, but it may actually turn out to be the most prosperous of all three new nation-states. Oil wealth (which the Sunnis do not have) has tended to be more of a curse than a blessing in that part of (and much of) the world, and cities (full of educated people, and the Sunnis you'll recall are Iraq's elite) have tended to be a blessing. The city of Baghdad and all those Sunni engineers and merchants and doctors are more valuable than any amount of oil in Kirkuk.

Bush's own plan is to hand the mess off to his successor.

Just to be cruel: the most successful political pitch ever made by an American candidate in similar circumstances was Ike's 1952 "I will go to Korea."

The war was more or less unwinnable, and Ike knew it, but it was also a major political dilemma -- and he damned sure knew THAT. So the undoubted war hero simply announced that once elected, HE would be in charge -- and that was that; the Democratic nominee never had a chance.

Ike never had a plan, exactly; and he realized immediately after taking office, if he didn't know long before, that there was nothing for it but a heavily fortified ceasefire in place.

So Democrats don't need a plan -- but we DO need something bold and unequivocal to say.

Did you ever think that maybe there are no GOOD solutions to Iraq maybe just less BAD solutions? How many Friedmans do we give it 1,2,10,20,100?

Get the electricity on in Bagdad 24x7.

Get the electricity on in Bagdad 24x7.

This is likely to end like Vietnam, with us eventually tucking tail and leaving the Iraqis to sort it out. And who wants to bet that in the wake of the inevitable bloodbath that we created a bunch of war supporters will point to that bloodbath as evidence of why we did the right thing by going in, ala Vietnam.

We could, but only if there are some plausible solutions to argue about.

Hah? What are you talking about? Bush has already given his solution. We should stay the course and democratize Iraq. When the Iraqis stand-up we will stand down. When our mission of defeating the terrorists in Iraq is complete, our troops will return home to a proud nation. What is YOUR problem with the Bush's plan?

So the Repubs drove drunk, smashed us headfirst into a tree, and now want us to think up a story before the cops arrive!

> Get the electricity on in Bagdad 24x7.

I had friends and former co-workers who were asked to go to Iraq to help with the electricity situation. Not Republican-approved appointees, but people who actually know how to do that sort of stuff. Those who after seeing the conditions still agreed to go were all back by mid-2004. It was too dangerous and a virtually impossible task then; it hasn't gotten any less dangerous or easier since.

Cranky

Perfect. The GOP's most strident warmongers got us into this mess, and it's "Damn those Democrats for not being smart enough to figure a way out of this!"

Bush has locked himself and the rest of the nation in the bank vault, and now we're supposed to be miffed that the Democrats don't have an escape plan. If they were leaders I guess they could melt steel with their brain waves or something. Sheesh.

Kevin is absolutely correct in the message he's been pushing for the past couple of week: this fiasco is a clusterfuck with no good options left. It's amazing, but the GOP has fouled this up so bad, the badness of the situation is now a weapon they're using against Democrats. Complaining about the (mythical) dearth of Good Ideas (TM) from Democrats on Iraq is just a distraction from how badly the current administration has bungled things, and how voters should no longer trust them to do their grocery shopping, let alone conduct the war. Eyes on the prize, people.

Republicans have learnt, and correctly so, that all they have to do is to win the war of public opininion at home, and they know very well about the tactics necessary for the victory: just sow doubts about things that are objectively true, let the sycophantic media put those doubts in the headlines, and watch as the ADD suffering somnolent 50.00001% of Americans eat it all up.

The Dems have learnt nothing from the 12 years of being anally raped with a broomstick.

The solution involves the US reaching a regional security agreement with neighboring countries, most importantly Iran, and secondarily Syria. Part of the regional security agreement would create a sort of ME regional Marshall plan, with the cooperation of Iran. Whether US troops stay in or out of Iraq given such a regional agreement is largely irrelevant. Unfortunately, I don't see the Democrats as having the political ability (or even the interest) domestically, to pull off an agreement with the currently demonized Iran.

We have lost political flexibility to act in our own long term interest. We have no opposiion party.

So the Repubs drove drunk, smashed us headfirst into a tree, and now want us to think up a story before the cops arrive!

And we were the passenger begging them not to drive, to pull over once they'd started, and screaming that a tree was just ahead.

Quick solution to Iraq: let them vote, in a plebiscite, on our cotinued presence. Hooray democracy, right?
As for Ignatius, we have about 30,000 troops, on any given day, working "outisde the fence" of our military bases trying to control this country of 27 million. With Bush running the policy. Naturally, we're not doing a good job. And Ignatius seems to forget that Bush is the Commander in Chief. If Democrats control Congress, the most they can do is control the purse strings (appropirations) for Iraq. They still can't run the policy. The best thing they can possibly do is investigate the criminal negligence of this administration and put an end to the corruption and incompetence. They shouldn't be called upon to propound the correct counter-insurgency tacitcs and political negotitions. That's why we have the Pentagon (DoD) and Foggy Bottom (State). These agencies, devoted to this sort of analysis, are unfortunately controlled by hacks who seem to dismiss or hide from reality whenever it rears it's head.
So the democratic plan should be to hold hearings on why State and the DoD keeps screwing things up, and what the plans and options are to fix things.
Also, for more comprehensive info on how to hold a vote in Iraq, check: http://agorabum.blogspot.com/2006/08/iraq-solution-put-it-to-vote.html for more details.

I just want to say that you describe the situation very forcefully and very well Kevin -- I wish you were getting those big WP op-ed bucks.

Even if you concede Ignatius his mindnumbing point, it still misses the crucial necessity for SOME moral accounting. The distortions, incompetence, and hubris in their actions screams for acknowledgement. Yes, we all know it. Hell, even they probably know it. But if we can't agree about reality's basic outlines, what good will our "solutions" be? Our arguments must presume some kind of common logic and precepts. As it stands now, there are none.

we all knew this would happen (blaming dems). the republicans are the party of one track minds, and this is always their "answer" to problems they create. if it's not The Clenis, it's dems in general.

which is why i think everyone should take a look at a prison sometime soon. the demonization of the left has only begun.

Its time for a new campaign slogan that gets to the heart of the matter:

The GOP: Bombing countries that don't have the bomb, wimps to those that do.

One is not allowed to call Iraq a ClusterFuck or Quagmire. With over 2,700 KIA,30,000 wounded and another 70 billion the other day,can we call it "A Bottomless Pit"?

Sometimes you're just screwed.

Kinda like when Admiral Donitz took over after Hitler's suicide, and tried to operate a rump German government near the Baltic. They all busied themselves with plans and procedures, and then the British just walked in and arrested them all one day.

And we were the passenger begging them not to drive, to pull over once they'd started, and screaming that a tree was just ahead.

Yes, but they still claim it is our fault because we got in the car, which we left filled with gas before handing them the keys.

Isn't "Apocalypse Now" just about due for a remake?

Our arguments must presume some kind of common logic and precepts.

Extremely well put.

There can be no debate if one of the parties in the debate adamently refuses to accept facts on the ground as they exist.

How can you propose a solution to avert the civil war if the architects of the war and those who are managing it do not accept that this problem even exists?

But Dems and Dems alone are responsible for the situation having come to this.

Bush's own plan is to hand the mess off to his successor.

January 21, 2009 -- it will be Hillary's war

So the Repubs drove drunk, smashed us headfirst into a tree, and now want us to think up a story before the cops arrive!

Best annalogy I've heard yet.

So on November 7th, we revoke their license and sell their car and they can take a cab in the future.

Not to mention which, detailed alternatives have been proposed by Democrats, most recently George McGovern's in the current issue of Harper's.

The balls of these people...

Hey! No fair! We've got a plan!

Surrender! Make it impossible for our troops to fight any more! Let them come crawling back in defeat where we can spit on them in person! Let the enemy eat Iraq whole and start killing Iraqis where we don't have to look at it any more!

It's a great plan! It worked like a charm in Vietnam, and all the unpleasantness afterward was comfortably off-stage. Hey, it's practically a vacation spot now, with all those post-war democracy-puke troublemakers dead or fled.

If we offered Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld, one each, to the three largest insurgent factions in exchange for laying down their arms and participating in a pluralistic limited democracy, I bet the Iraqis could find a way to live together.

It would be win win for both the peoples of Iraq and the US.

"Hah? What are you talking about? Bush has already given his solution. We should stay the course and democratize Iraq. When the Iraqis stand-up we will stand down. When our mission of defeating the terrorists in Iraq is complete, our troops will return home to a proud nation. What is YOUR problem with the Bush's plan?"

Do you know what the word, "plan," means? You haven't listed any sort of plan; you've produced a list of desirable outcomes. How do you propose to acheive them?

Oh, hell, we all know you aren't serious about terrorism, or defense of the country--you're only concern is spinning this debacle for the elctorate . . .

"Should we privatize Social Security? Let's debate."

I notice that debate ended up pretty much the same way, with Democrats claiming the problem doesn't exist, so they don't have to think of anything.

Et tu, Drum?

Iraq can't "spiral" into civil war. That happened years ago.

That whole avoid the "civi war" phrase is just the White House's latest linguistic nonsense. Like Social Security "privatization".

So the Repubs drove drunk, smashed us headfirst into a tree, and now want us to think up a story before the cops arrive!

It's more like they already have made a plan to pin the blame for the disaster on the dems, and the dems are quietly and timidly waiting in the corner hoping against all hope that somehow due to their silence the cops will not believe the story.

My congrats to the Jefe-in-Charge for starting this exciting thread. However, I do have one complaint, and that is I did not receive my advanced copy of a "heads-up".

All kidding aside, I offer up the following and from the perspective of the Chicanos and Chicanas for having served in our Armed forces--current and former members.

Here is the link:

http://www.chicanoveterans.org/id19.htm

(Cactus Juice Commentaries)

Respectfully Submitted.

Hostile

Best idea I've heard yet.

Bart, Principal Skinner is coming and boy is he pissed. Get your skateboard and be gone. Hurry now.

I wouldn't be offended if Hostiles scenario played out and aWol got intimmately acquainted with a blow-torch and a pair of needle-nosed pliers (hat-tip to Marcellus Wallace.)

It's sort of pointless for the Democrats to come up with a plan now anyway. Even in the unlikely chance that they take majorities in both the House and Senate, they still won't have the power to stop Bush from doing what he wants to do 2006-2008. Not unless they cut the funding and does anyone think the Dems really have the balls to do that? I certainly don't.

As for what to do in Iraq, the options are so terrible that you only have the choice of which catastrophe is less damaging. Since Iran is going to take over most, if not all, of the country shortly after we leave, perhaps we should consider negotiating with Iran to get out of their way, say in exchange for curtailing their nuclear program?

Good answer. Going to take me all morning analyzing that intelligent response. Dropping down to that level, the real Bart Simpson would have a field day with somebody whose nickname is "Global."

Make it impossible for our troops to fight any more! Let them come crawling back in defeat where we can spit on them in person!

That is a very good plan, but most Americans are unable to spit properly. If a clever electrical engineer could come up with a device that only required the push of button to spit a big glob of sputum on the face of a soldier, Americans would embrace it.

brian:

Since Iran is going to take over most, if not all, of the country shortly after we leave, perhaps we should consider negotiating with Iran to get out of their way, say in exchange for curtailing their nuclear program?

Hey, that's an even better idea! Throw countries at Iran and hope it all goes away! Worked great in the late 1930s! For a while.

Good answer. Going to take me all morning analyzing that intelligent response.

Since your comment about Social Security is completely off the mark, it is not surprising that you can't understand why nobody takes you seriously.

Apologies if this has been stated earlier (haven't had time to read through the thread), but this "blaming the Democrats" business is clearly the current campaign strategy of the Republican'ts. Thus the BS "Path to 9/11" hokum and the associated "blame Clinton for not capturing Osama" stuff. Blaming us for not sorting out Iraq is simply another angle in the campaign.

Why offer a solution if there is no way to implement it? Control of Congress still isn't control of the Armed Forces. Only a Democratic Presidential candidate can propose a solution that could actually be implemented. The only action the Dems can take is to investigate.
The mistakes made in Iraq have been hidden by the GOP and Bush, not to mention the reality of the situation on the ground.
The Dems should vow to hold 5 or 6 day work weeks, with lots of long hours, in order to discover what really has been going on the last three years. Only once we have the true picture of the facts on the ground can we devise a change. Have 'em even send congressional investigation committees to Iraq and the neighboring countries (hopefully composed of ex-military staff and hard nosed professional diplomats, not some namby pamby staffer who's parents donated a lot of cash, a la "Life in the Emerald City").

"So Democrats don't need a plan -- but we DO need something bold and unequivocal to say."

We don't want to stay the course, we want to change the course.

If anyone says "What's your plan," the response should be "Fire Donald Rumsfeld. Listen to the generals. Talk with our allies, including those OUTSIDE the 'Coalition of the Willing.' What's the Publicant's Plan?"

Since your comment about Social Security is completely off the mark...

If you look at the post, Drum was the one who brought it up in this context. I just pointed out that ducking the problem was used for that issue too.

I notice the "since we're not in power, why have policies?" gag has been invoked here, too.

---here, but what's the deal with "Some extreme war critics are so angry at Bush they seem almost eager for America to lose, to prove a political point."

And the Matt goes on to say: That's a serious charge. Does Ignatius have evidence for it? No. Does he cite any examples? No. Does he name any names? No. I find it extremely frustrating that you're allowed to toss off this kind of liberal-bashing without providing any backing.

Exactly!

I saw some Dems that did provide some plans.

As Bush USE to say - as they stand up, we'll stand down. But Bush seems to be avoiding that talk now?

I wonder way, could it be because many the Iraqi police have turned into milita and that there no longer is a viable training plan?

Who was it that was running for Democratic office that said to team one US trooper with each Iraqi officer but he didn't get elected but somehow that plan made so much sense to me, that it hurt.

A couple of weeks ago on Meet the Press, someone from NRO said that Bush's "stay the course" sounded stubborn. Duh, ya think NRO?

And Dems have offered a plan, its called making Iraq accountable. John Kerry said all this just the other day that a time-table is the answer. We simply don't have the manpower AND Americans are not wanting to get more invested in this lossing battle whereby Bush is creating more terrorist to fight over there to give himself an excuse for a war.

Why isn't David Ignatius asking what plan McCain has other then Bush's "stay the course"? McCain wanted more troops but where is McCain planning on finding more troops? McCain isn't being realistic, when the only option would be to start the military draft, but most American already think this war was mistake.

There is only one option - and that is a time-table for withdraw, or as Dems like to say "re-deployment".

"We don't want to stay the course; we want to change the course" isn't bad -- in fact it's already the Bush guys' latest slogan: "adapt to win."

Firing Rumsfeld is also a good focus -- but "listening to our allies" (especially the ones who won't back us up) diffuses that focus.

I've always said about Iraq that wars are easy to start and hard to finish. FWIW, that's not a bad focus, either --- Bush obviously screwed up when he started this war.

Maybe we should just keep asking if America trusts Republicans to finish it.

"'Should we privatize Social Security? Let's debate.'

I notice that debate ended up pretty much the same way, with Democrats claiming the problem doesn't exist, so they don't have to think of anything."

This clearly demonstrates the Publican't method of political discussion. Start with a f**ked up solution, then accuse the Democrats of ignoring the problem.

Aside from the fact that the Publican't skewed the data to greatly overstate the problem (lies, damned lies, and statistics), Democrats did acknowledge there may be a problem in the future, depending on the economy and growth in the workforce. (With all those illegal immigrants coming in, looks like the workforce IS growing rapidly, and even better, they pay in without being able to take out.) And Democrats even offered a simple solution--raise or eliminate the cap on wages subject to payroll tax.

But like the war in Iraq, the Publican't "plan" actually makes things worse instead of better, and somehow this is the Democrats' fault????

The Big Lie lives in the policies of the Publican't Party.

"If a clever electrical engineer could come up with a device that only required the push of button to spit a big glob of sputum on the face of a soldier, Americans would embrace it."

I'd love such a device, but I wouldn't use it against a soldier, and I dare you find a Democrat who would.

I'd use it against any neocon I could find. If it had the range, I'd especially like to use it against Unka Dick, Unka Karl, and Rummy. I'd like to smear Rummy's face in the blood of a fallen soldier. I'd like to shove an amputated limb up where the sun don't shine.

You want to compare someone to the Devil? It's a tough choice between the three of them, but on the whole, I'd have to choose Cheney, since he seems to be in charge.

"Some extreme war critics are so angry at Bush they seem almost eager for America to lose, to prove a political point."

What, you don't see ANY war critics like this? At ALL? Where do you live? There are a hell of a lot of people who are dreaming of the day when that last helicopter flees Iraq and everything they've said since the 1960s is gloriously vindicated.

Here's a little test for everybody:

You open the morning paper, and Iraq has beaten the last holdouts. The Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds have worked out power sharing, and the oil wealth is spread to all citizens in nice, fat royalty checks. The rebuilding proceeds apace, the government of Iraq declares a national holiday, parades of Iraqi troops go down the streets with cheering Iraqis lining the sidewalks, and a statue of Bush is erected on a plaza somewhere.

Hey, look! You just bit your own bloody TONGUE off, didn't you?

Case closed.

My apologies to US soldiers. Cal Gal is right, spit and blood should only be smeared on the faces of US politicians who voted to give war powers to Bush.

Step # 1 for Dems: Pull out the National Guard

This is a sensible first step.

"The Democratic Party will press for a policy of returning the National Guard from front-line status. The Guard is not front-line troops. We will press for a policy of returning ALL Guard units by Jan 1, 2007."

So Democrats don't need a plan -- but we DO need something bold and unequivocal to say.

I agree.

My plan - pull the Guard. The Guard is not front-line troops. It is being abused in Iraq.

Step # 1 - pull the Guard.

bart wrote: "I notice that [social security] debate ended up pretty much the same way, with Democrats claiming the problem doesn't exist, so they don't have to think of anything."

That's a particularly dumbass lie.

Bart whined: "Going to take me all morning analyzing that intelligent response. Dropping down to that level ..."

Typical brain-dead Bush-bootlicking neo-brownshirt mental slave behaviour: jump into the thread with a dumbass lie, regurgitating some bit of scripted Republican propaganda, and then when someone points out that you've just posted some scripted dumbass lie, whine about the "level of discourse" and how "liberals" won't "argue seriously."

Where do these propaganda-regurgitating dumbass dittoheads come from, and are they really so dumb that they don't realize that everyone else sees how dumb they are?

bart wrote: "If you look at the post, Drum was the one who brought it up in this context. I just pointed out that ducking the problem was used for that issue too."

No, you just regurgitated some scripted, programmed, dumbass, fake, phony Republican bullshit lie, like the ignorant, weak-minded dupe that you are.

Chaos and bloodshed if we stay, chaos and bloodshed if we leave. There are no good alternatives. However, we can replace the defective leadership that got us into this mess, rather than leave them in charge. "Stay the course" didn't work very well for the Titanic, and it isn't a "plan" for Iraq.

Boy it's the same old shit from the Republicans, trying to spin their way out of the mess:

Bin Laden delcared war on America and Clinton did nothing.

The Iraqis have had elections and the north is flourishing [omit part about Iraqi Kurdistan flourishing before the invasion as well]; we must stay the course.

Democrats and the liberal media endanger national security by leaking and publishing classified documents.

The Bush administration did not do nothing after they received the not an anti-terrorist plan from the Clinton administration because it was just a series of actionable items anyway.

When it comes to fighting terrorism, we Republicans are butch and the Democrats are a bunch of pussies.

The cut-and-run Democrats have no plan.

And the latest: Polls may say the Iraqis want the US out of Iraq, but you can't trust polls.

When will the godforsaken electorate awaken to the fact that the country is being run by a bunch of dangerous fanatics.

Maybe Chris Wallace can ask Bill Clinton why he didn't do more to bring democracy to Iraq. Anything Bush hasn't done right is, of course, Clinton's fault in one way or another. It's easy- e.g. the national debt wouldn't be so high right now if Clinton had run more of a budget surplus.

monkeybone:

> Here's a little test for everybody:

> You open the morning paper, and Iraq has beaten the last holdouts.
> The Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds have worked out power sharing, and
> the oil wealth is spread to all citizens in nice, fat royalty
> checks. The rebuilding proceeds apace, the government of Iraq
> declares a national holiday, parades of Iraqi troops go down
> the streets with cheering Iraqis lining the sidewalks, and
> a statue of Bush is erected on a plaza somewhere.

Woah ... did you cum good?

*Speaking* of fucking ponies, Jesus ...

Bob

Bart, the statement was "'Should we privatize Social Security? Let's debate." and not "Is my plan for privatizing Social Security better than yours? Let's debate."

The Dem reply to the initial question was that the pro-privatization crowd had selectively applied the worst of the government's own range of economic forecasts to Social Security projections to create the appearance of a looming near-term crisis. If, instead, the same forecasts were used that were being accepted for other government economic projections, Social Security faced minimal, at most, funding problems.

The question implicitly assumed that there was some long-term problem with Social Security that required privatization to fix it. The Dem response answered that question. No detailed response to a thinly-fleshed out proposal was required.

No one will present a plan for Iraq because all options are politically untenable.

Either you leave (Defeatocrats!) or double troop levels and commit long term (draft! raise taxes!!)

The bushites have no plan to do anything politically untenable so they will tread water and let somebody else deal with it.

The Repugs are hoping and praying that the Dems screw themselves by offering an actual plan. Whomever offers a plan first has to sell the reality of Iraq to a public that doesn't want to accept it.

Eventually someone is going to have to act like an adult and clean up the mess.

monkeybone:

In case you missed this fabulous post from last night:

=-=-=-=-=-=

monkeybone, oh monkeybone...

Are you still here?

I guess I'm one of those naive liberals and I'll admit I'm just
naturally inclined to agree with the many posters in this thread who
would rather engage with Iran and cut them some slack in their pursuit
of nuclear power. Some weakness I was born with, probably.

You sense this, not only in me, but in all progressives, and your
considerable condescension is completely understandable. I don't think
it's rude. After all, we're here for debate, aren't we? I'm impressed,
actually. You're made of sterner stuff than us and you're breadth of
knowledge is astonishing. Would you believe you've won me over? I want
to cleave to your point of view.

This is a new way of thinking for me, though. I'm a little uncertain.
What is the plan, exactly? How do we deal with these Islamists? I
mean, we've got the Iraqis well in hand. The Israelis have taken care
of Hezbollah. Afghanistan's been pacified. Iran's all lined up,
deservedly so. You've convinced me of that; but what's next? Is there
a timetable?

Do we go into Yemen next? That shouldn't be too hard. Maybe knock down
Bahrain and the UAE. Well, I don't know. You see it so much better
than I do. Should we do Egypt before or after Turkey? We probably
shouldn't wait too long on the Saudis. And Pakistan, it needs to be
completely out of the blue, right? I mean they have nukes.

There's all those other countries in north Africa, probably just roll
over them in a few weeks. And we've got the navy for Indonesia and
Malaysia. There's a bunch of Islamists in southern Thailand, did you
know that? Of course you did. We'll need to take care of them.

I'm probably getting ahead of myself. OK. Your plan obviously would
make more sense. You don't have to tell me every detail. Just brief me
a little.

Thanks. I'm with you all the way.
Posted by: exasperanto on September 27, 2006 at 1:11 AM | PERMALINK

-=-=-=-=-

Bob

I agree with Ignatius. Regardless of blame, the Congress and President have to deal with the sitation as it is.

In 1932, FDR could have said, "The Depression is Hoover's fault and it's unfixable. Vote for me; I couldn't do worse." Fortunately he said more. He took on the task of fixing the economy.

I'd like the Dems to offer their solution to the problems in Iraq and the GWOT generally. Their approach might be better than Bush's, but we can't judge it if we don't know what it is.

Change Course, Kill the Horse,Adapt to win,Is a Strawman sin,Impeach the prick,Don't forget Dick,Terrorist be Damned,The right is a sham.

There is something crucially and vitally important that we can fix in Iraq.

Fire the leadership.
(and prosecute them for war-crimes).

I guarantee, it won't embolden the terrorists any more than they're already emboldened.

I beyond sick and tired of hearing pundits demand that the Dems figure out a way to unring the bell of the Iraq War.

It is enough for the Dems to demand that the humpbacked GOP release grip of the rope.

So Democrats don't need a plan -- but we DO need something bold and unequivocal to say.

The Dems could say that they have a secret plan to end the war....

The bushites have no plan to do anything politically untenable so they will tread water and let somebody else deal with it.

Exactly right--and that is the message. Americans already get this...even the Political Animal trolls frantically pretending they don't.

I don't think this will come as much of a surprise, but in my quick scan of this thread the great majority of right-wing comments seem to be variations on the "...what you liberals REALLY want is..." or "...what you liberals REALLY think is..." projection themes. They actual problem of Iraq seems a secondary issue, if that. Yet somehow it's liberals who deserve blame for "not having ideas".

Step # 1 for Dems: Pull out the National Guard

This is a sensible first step.

Democratic leaders should accept POed Lib's idea and pound the Republicans with it.

I sent the following email to Mr. Ignatius last evening:

Read your Op-Ed tonight "The Big Question Democrats Are Ducking".

I am as much of Mid-East expert as Bush is (I was born and raised there).

I predicted all that has occurred to date in Iraq back in 2002 and I did not have a Multi-billion dollar intelligence apparatus at my fingertips to manipulate.

I am not overly impressed by calls for Democrats to have a "plan". They are not in charge and can not put a plan into effect even if they came up with a coherent plan. Redeployment is a political position, but a valid one given the entire WOT is a political position for Bush himself. Second, your column makes the assumption that there IS a solution to the mess in Messopatamia.

I do not agree with this premise.

There will be a conflict in Iraq that will draw in the regional powers (this has already occurred to some extent but will just reach its maximum effect sooner if the US leaves).

I am from Turkey and have been following the local reaction to events in the press there and I can tell you that Bush has no clue to the shit storm that is coming. You will see $120 oil. $80 will look cheap - how about $6/gallon? Hey in Turkey, the price today is $9/gallon in normal times! Why shouldn't the US public pay a higher price? The money wasted on these kinds of military invasions is merely a subsidy to defer these oil related expenses anyway. This is in the long run counter productive, especially since oil is a fungible resource.

The producers have to sell to some one and eventually it all evens out. I never understood why countries think they can "control" oil supplies by exerting economic/military forces over certain countries. This is a ridiculous assumption. Oil simply goes to the highest bidder (kind of like Mad Max).

If the US had stayed indefinitely in Vietnam the end result would have been the same. I do not think the final outcome will change substantially if the US withdraws from Iraq in 2007 versus 2009? The locals will determine their future even if this means substantial bloodshed in the interim. The only question for the US is how many more casualties to incur? Would you sacrifice your son for this conflict. I think you know the answer to that. Then why should you ask to sacrifice some one else's son?

I am sick and tired of pundits like you and Friedman telling us why other people should sacrifice their children in this effort.

You may want to read this article in your own paper today re first balck female West Point cadet killed in Iraq (Why?):

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/26/AR2006092601765.html

There are thousands of other stories just like it.

sglover wrote: I don't think this will come as much of a surprise, but in my quick scan of this thread the great majority of right-wing comments seem to be variations on the "...what you liberals REALLY want is..." or "...what you liberals REALLY think is..." projection themes. They actual problem of Iraq seems a secondary issue, if that. Yet somehow it's liberals who deserve blame for "not having ideas".

That's because the ignorant, weak-minded dupes who post those comments are members of the Cult of Hatred of Liberals, led by Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, and various other bought-and-paid-for phony propaganda shills of the most extreme of the ultra-right-wing extremist corporate elites.

They don't really care about Iraq, or about any other "issue." The only thing they really care about is hating "liberals" 24x7, just as the only thing Hitler's brownshirts really cared about was hating "Jews". They love to hate. They are members of a cult of hatred. That's what they are all about. Their so-called "conservative" politics has no other content except their hatred of "liberals".

many of us young working class Democrats

It never ceases to amaze me how the wingnuts always claim that they are/were Dems; they intuitively know that being Publican is dirty and creepy.

The Korean War saw no anti-war protests by John Kerry and Jane Fonda- types.

More wingnut rewriting of history. Like with VN, the anti-Korean War protests were led by returning servicemen, like JK.

YK, nice.

mhr is a paradigmatic example of an ignorant, weak-minded dupe and member of the Limbaugh-Coulter Cult of Liberal Hatred. His every single post, from beginning to end, is nothing but slavish regurgitation of scripted right-wing extremist bullshit with no content other than his hatred of "liberals". Where Hitler's brownshirts were brainwashed to love to hate "Jews", our modern-day American neo-brownshirts like mhr love to hate "liberals".

Disputo:

I think Thomas is a concern troll, and never was a Democrat at all, but I get the vibe that mhr is sincere.

It reminds me more of the days when there were a lot of cultural reactionaries, knee-jerk militarists and Red-baiters in the Democratic Party, before Nixon's Southern Strategy and the '72 Party reforms forced a realignment.

We may have suffered electorally for it ever since. But our Democratic consciences are a *helluva* lot more clear as a result.

Bob

rmck1 wrote: "I get the vibe that mhr is sincere."

I can't imagine what you find to be "sincere" about mhr's comments. Every single word he posts is nothing but slavish regurgitation of scripted Republican bullshit talking points. If there was ever a right-wing extremist commenter here whose comments make me think they might actually be generated by some sort of bot program from a collection of boilerplate text, it's mhr.

I think we should, and must, leave Iraq pretty soon. Not cut and run so mush as leave and stroll. I believe in doing this we will be better off rather quickly and not worse off. Here’s why:

When we go there is going to be a shit storm sure enough, so let’s get it over with now as opposed to later. If the various factions wish to fight it out, they will but I think that as opportunity costs accumulate, the elites on the various sides will have reason to moderate. It won’t be pretty, it won’t be over night, but it will subside.

So you say that Iran, Syria and others will step in. Fine, let them tie up their resources in this tar pit. Let Iran invest its GDP in a power grab, that’s less money for their nuclear program. Same with the Saudis, less money publishing textbooks that condemn the U.S., among other outrages.

Meanwhile we can rebuild our shattered military and begin getting ready for whatever comes next; and even have some funds on hand to secure our ports.

If we find that terror camps are operating in Iraq after we leave, we can always pay a quick visit. Muqtada al-Sadr up to no good, take him out. Better now than when after Iran goes nuclear. Strangely, we might end up with more workable options once our troops are out.

What I am proposing is not humane, since we passed that exit some time ago. We have to, in the short term, save ourselves so we might be of some productive use to the greater world later on.

rmck1 wrote: "I get the vibe that mhr is sincere."

Bobby, put down the crack pipe, that's one fucked up vibe.

Sincere mhr recently typed:

"Modern Democrats have declared war on Christians...."

Not so much sincere, more like a lying sack.

Keith G & SecularAnimist:

Well, you can be sincere and sincerely wrong. There were an awful lotta racists and cultural warrior-type Christian fundies in the Democratic Party before the Southern Strategy split. Their conspiracy theory du jour, of course, is how those Decadent Sixties poisoned the Party and turned it into a bunch of spineless peacenik do-gooders.

I mean, the Reagan Democrats are a real phenomenon.

It's also entirely possible to imagine an ex-Democrat who has turned rabidly anti-Democrat: witness Zell Miller. And this would make sense because an old duffer who voted for those heroic anti-Communists Truman and Kennedy finds no home in a Party that led the charge against the Vietnam war and for cultural liberation issues like civil and women's rights.

Sure -- you'd have to imagine this old curmudgeon sitting in a townhouse in an adult community somewhere (probably in Arizona) that selects for Republicans. Sure, a person like this is the functional equivalent of a right-winger who never had a Democratic thought in his/her life.

I just don't think sincerity is necessarily at issue here.

Oh and Secular -- love ya, you know I do. But you're hardly one to cast aspersions at boilerplate responses :)

Bob

The only way to defuse the sectarian civil war is to coopt its leaders and give them incentives to become part of a federalist system.

First, accept that informal political power is power nevertheless, and find ways of to make their power more formal. Give them responsibility for security and infrastructure, either by electing them or letting them form businesses that would drive reconstruction.

Then, give these local leaders the money that now goes to military operations and to companies like Halliburton. This allows Iraqis to control reconstruction, and it also employs them in activities that don't involve improvising explosive devices. It should begin the creation of a middle class that will have an interest in stability.

At the same time, it is necessary to reduce the apparent presence of US forces. This may mean withdrawal from Iraq, or it may mean redeployment to less populated areas. Whatever the tactic used, it is important to reduce the perception of the US as an occupier that has started a fight by invading, and now wants to control that fight (and, by extension, whatever government emerges from the process).

Whatever US forces remain in Iraq should focus their operations on protecting Iraqis in the process of reconstruction, not on looking for and attacking insurgents. The point here is to coopt Iraqis as partners against the insurgency by giving them incentives ("they killed my sister!") to do so, and removing the incentive to attack the "occupiers."

In my mind, our central failure here has been to focus on fighting the insurgency when we should have been concentrating on reconstruction. To be sure, reconstruction requires security. But insurgents might be less inclined to sabotage projects owned and controlled by local Iraqi leaders than they would those owned by Halliburton. They might also prefer a job to an IED. It looks an awful lot like Iraq policy is more of a Halliburton subsidy than a state-building project. If some Americans have that impression, it should be no surprise that many Iraqis do as well--they are on the ground watching a bunch of foreigners living high on the hog while they can't feed their families. And we should not wonder that it pisses them off.

I go with Linus.

Partition is quite popular among Iraqis, except for the Sunni.

We should start by getting out of the Anbar province ASAP. Let the Sunni and Al Qeda have that area. If the Sunni do not want Al Qeda there, then Sunni need to talk to Syria and Arabia about getting help.

I cannot seen how putting Yanks in Kurdistan helps, we would just drag along a gazillion Jihadists with us cause havok.

We should start by supporting the militia in their own areas. Let the Iraqi Army divide themselves up according to their sectarian loyalties. Help the militia defend their own areas as we fairly rapidly retreat south.

[quote]Hey, that's an even better idea! Throw countries at Iran and hope it all goes away! Worked great in the late 1930s! For a while.[/quote]

What other option is there other than to actually fight the war which means:

1) Start a draft and pull in 100,000-200,000 new troops.

2) Resind the tax cuts and raise taxes to start funneling it into the military.

3) Start gas rationing.

No one purposes that because you think the Iraq war is unpopular now? Try to do any of the above.

So just saying we shouldn't do something because it looks like or actually is appeasement won't do for an argument. Anyone who wants to seriously debate what we do in Iraq has to face the current political reality in the United States and the world. And that political reality is that we have no more troops and no more money and no access to any other country's troops. What can we REALLY do other than cut the best deal we can as we get out?

Let's just assume, for arguments sake, that the Democrats came up with the perfect solution. The problem remains...Bush is the Commander in Chief, and Bush controls the Pentagon, and Bush will continue to do whatever he wants to. Further, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Condi Rice and the President would rip and criticize any alternative plan, using Fox News and Sunday talk shows to whip up on any proposed changes. The print media, fearing loss of access, and desiring to appear unbiased, would mangle the debate, obscure the facts and frame the debate to the point of mere folly. For example, former President Clinton raises questions the media neglected to ask the Bush White House, but the media reports that "Clinton Loses Cool." If the Democrats had a plan, it would get burried and lost in the morass of campaign news about "macaca," and gay marriage bans, and gas prices, etc.

I for one, don't blame the Dems for getting us into this mess (that would be unfair to lay on the Dems, given the total control over both the exec and legislative branches that the GOP has had). I am also not saying the Dems haven’t been trying to get some ideas across the aisle for the Bushies to consider over the past few years.

I am saying, however, that now the game has changed FROM that of trying to convince the GOP about ways to fix Iraq TO that of convincing America at large that we can trust the Dems with the keys to the castle and that they have a clue of how to run the castle if they get them. I for one am yet to be convinced of this.

It is old hat to say that Bush got us into this mess – I can certainly agree with that. The important question is: Now that it is America’s (not Bush’s) problem, what are the Dems going to do about it?

In other words, the Dems are still fighting the 2000/2004 campaigns. I’m interested in knowing how they will fight the 2008 campaign.

monkeybone:

Here's a little test for you:

You open the morning paper and read the date September 27, 2012. The 9,101st American to die in the Iraq war was killed the day before by an IED. You read that the network of VA hospitals is collapsing under the burden of caring for 200,000 severely disabled soldiers. Another mass shooting by a soldier with PTSD who was released from the hospital prematurely has killed 9 in Detroit. Iraqis are still dying at the rate of 100 per day, as they have been since 2006. A terrorist bomb detonated by a Muslim suicide bomber outside the heavily fortified American Embassy in Cairo has killed 15 Egyptian soldiers who form part of its guard force. Even since they've been socialized American airlines are struggling with the problem of few customers because security protocol requires pre-screening four days before the flight, and half-hour body scans of all passengers. Iraq was split into three states back in 2008, and the three different governments have been even less able to deal with the revenge-bent and oil-hungry militias. Women are regularly beaten by vigilantes due to rumors that they are attending college classes or meeting with men not members of the their family behind closed doors. The U.S. couldn't afford the kind of incentives required to keep large numbers of volunteer military troops, and no American politician would institute a draft, so over the last few years, mercenaries have increased to make up half the coalition forces. They are constantly accused of illegal actions, and occasionally atrocities, but U.S. forces depend on them too much to investigate closely. The Iraqis who remain in the country are primarily too poor to leave, or rich enough to afford armed bodyguards.

Hey, look! You just responded "When the Iraqis stand up, we will stand down!" No need to do anything but stay the course. It's clearly the road to victory. Besides, if we quit now, all those soldiers died in vain.

exasperanto: Okay, off the cuff.

Start with Iran.

Step one in Iran, and any other problem nation, is to realize that the U.N. is utterly useless, and probably counterproductive. Most liberals will jump ship right there. Obviously, with some Security Council members having decided that Iran will never suffer any consequences for defiance, the U.N. is pretty much out of the loop now.

Step Two is more effective support of opposition groups in Iran. Encourage communications with funding and technical support. Figure out ways past the wrecked satellite dishes. Nothing involving military action.

Step Three is pushing harder on outside methods of providing nuclear energy to Iran, keeping up the ludicrous pretense of course that this is what they're interested in. Their interest in these ideas will let you know their real motives.

Refining fissionables outside the country for use in supervised reactors would be one way, until they throw out the supervisors. This can be done in combination with Two. Note that a lot of this stuff has already been tried.

Step Three is improving U.S. human intelligence in Iran, a place where the U.S. is very weak. One quick fix is organizing information with the Israelis, who, I guarantee, have much better resources there than the U.S. does.

This is also something that should be combined with previous steps.

If none of this gets the job done, then we take it up up a notch to Step Four, which is to organize a group of nations outside the U.N. and arrange sanctions on Iran if Iran continues to defy the U.N. Whether this would work or not is questionable, with someone like China cheerfully willing to buy oil from anyone at all, and not giving a rat's arse if Iran nukes Israel or not. But it's worth a shot.

Notice that if the U.S. negotiates one-on-one with Iran, it's still in the same position of not being able to offer any sticks or carrots that someone like China can't trump anyway with hard cash, so this approach doesn't really change anything at all. A red herring.

Military action should be Step Five, a long ways past Step Four. There are two major approaches here. Neither of them involve ground force invasion and occupation.

The first would be a targeted attack on nuclear facilities. This is tricky, but an attack would, at the very least, seriously delay development. Attacks at other critical points might work. It's damn hard to develop and test missiles underground. There will be civilian casualties.

Second, there may be possibilities in a naval blockade. This would raise almost as much political trouble as an attack, but has a lesser chance of collateral damage in Iran or elsewhere. Much would depend on cooperation from allies in the area, or at least from other oil nations that wouldn't mind getting a bigger piece of the action.

Both of these approaches involve few ground troops, but a lot of use of mostly-idle U.S. air and naval forces. There would still be a lot of danger for them, particularly the blockade force, which by definition is almost a sitting duck. Make sure the naval defenses are in top form.

That should give you something to start with. If you ask for a solution on this, and some gormless idiot mentions "engagment" or "effective diplomacy" with no further details, pull his shorts up over his head.

monkeybone:

You took exasperanto's post seriously.

The post was pure snark. Unbelievable ...

Okay, I should go respond to yours now.

Bob

cowalker:

And, if we pull out of Iran tomorrow, all the bastards who would be doing all these things will just say, "Oh, well, that's all right then. Back to the farm."

These people have been attacking the West for years. You can cling to the fantasy that it's all Bush's fault, and nobody would hate us if Al Gore were president, but it doesn't stand up.

This entire thread could be summed up in one statement: The Democrats would happily see half the planet go up in smoke if Bush and the Republicans went up with it. No wonder they aren't interested in solutions.

What's disgusting about the article is the subtext, which is: If Democrats can't find a solution to the Republican-created problem that Republicans have no solution for, then voters should retain the Republicans in office. That's implied, pretty strongly, in the article, if you read it through all the way. But it's an unsupportable conclusion. Even if (as I don't concede) Dems don't have a solution for Iraq, if neither side has a solution, why not dump the people who got you into the problem in the first place?

Here is the fundamental difference between liberals and conservatives re: the United Nations. I mean, we all know it is flawed. We all know that there is corruption. We all know that the ideal is way over here, and the reality is way the fuck over there. Okay. I am not disputing that.

Where we hit the fork in the road is on what to do about it. You say just get rid of it. I say make it better. Make it work. Lead by example and stop being a bunch of whiny little bitches. In a world where rogue states are working on developing nukes, do we really want to get rid of the closest thing to a deliberative body that we have anywhere on the planet? Of course not. So stop bitching and come up with some solutions to make it work to it's potential.

monkeybone writes:

You open the morning paper, and Iraq has beaten the last holdouts.

That would be the best-case scenario. But as recent history has suggested, none of the best-case scenarios the Bush administration has presented has come to pass (wasn't oil revenue supposed to pay for the reconstruction of Iraq?). Our government needs to start engaging in Realpolitik, and deal with what is happening, plan for what is likely to happen, and be honest with the American people about it.

Kevin misses the point of Ignatius' column about the Democrats by talking about "various luminaries in the liberal foreign policy community" and all their great ideas. With the possible exceptions of Sen. Biden and Rep. Murtha the people he is referring to are, at best, potential appointees to posts in a future Democratic administration. They have no standing with the public, no loyal constituency; the most any of them will ever be is advisers.

The potential future Presidents in the Democratic Party -- the Clintons, the Kerrys, the Obamas and Bayhs and Edwards's -- are doing exactly what Ignatius says they are, rearguing the debates of 2003 if they're saying anything at all. As a tactic for avoiding risk this is hard to beat, but for establishing leadership credentials it is...lacking.

In terms of campaign tactics for 2006 this may not matter, which is just another way of restating the truism that if political support for the party in power collapses the party out of power will benefit no matter what it does. In the event support for Bush and the Republicans does not collapse, though, the Democrats might be better off looking ahead with Presidential aspirants who had something to say about a critical foreign policy issue beyond, "why should I have a position? Just look at the mess they've made!"

Military action should be Step Five, a long ways past Step Four. There are two major approaches here. Neither of them involve ground force invasion and occupation. The first would be a targeted attack on nuclear facilities. This is tricky, but an attack would, at the very least, seriously delay development. Attacks at other critical points might work. It's damn hard to develop and test missiles underground. There will be civilian casualties. Second, there may be possibilities in a naval blockade.

See, parents? This is what happens when send your children to I Can't Believe It's a Military Academy!

And while all this is going on, what are the millions of Iranian-allied Iraqi Shiites going to be doing to the 150,000 American soldiers in their midst? Throwing flower petals on them? Or perhaps rising up, cutting off their supply lines, and attacking them en masse?

So instead of merely being at war with 30% of Iraqis and losing, we'll then be at war with 80% of Iraqis....

rmck1:

I was making a point. It's a lot easier to sit around, yell, and throw empties onto the field, than it is to actually win a game.

Oh, an addendum to my list: It's going to be a lot easier to arrange a blockade, attack, or even sanctions without Saddam and his military sitting there next door.

(shaking head) The SECOND most successful political position in a similar circumstance was Nixon's "secret plan" to end the American war in Vietnam in 1968. When he took office, he called it "Vietnamization." It was always bogus -- but in U.S. politics, it worked wonders: he was elected, then RE-elected.

So thus far, there are two historic illustrations: First, Ike's bold, dramatic co-opting of the issue "I will go to Korea", which allowed him to both win the election AND to bail with a ceasefire in place. (Granted, the Korean peninsula in 1954 was a radically different situation; I'm just observing the politics.)

Second, Nixon's "secret plan", which was a significant part of his credibility (Nixon's credibility: there's an oxymoron, but of course it's the premise of all those Nixon to China analogies) in 1968.

In the end, of course, Nixon realized that to Vietnamize the war was to lose it, so what he was really working for was "a decent interval" between American withdrawal and South Vietnam's collapse.

To this day, there are millions of Americans who quite legitimately blame the Democracts in Congress for finally pulling the plug on the ARVN, dooming scores of millions of our friends -- that's the right word, yanno -- to conquest, complete with gulags.

That this was always Nixon's political strategy (considerably less of an oxymoron) doesn't make it less real.

I suppose there might be a THIRD example, albeit on a much smaller scale, which has the peculiar quirk of having also been instigated by Rumsfeld: Reagans' pulling the Marines out of Lebanon after the suicide bombing of their barracks. Rumsfeld's personal request that Reagan have the NJ shell the Bekaa hills led to the attack on our Marines; and Reagan pulled them out cuz they weren't doing any good -- but then he pounced on the chance to liberate Grenada.

Oddly, these all involve Republicans. I can't think of any examples of a Democrat who pulled an Eisenhower, a Nixon, or a Reagan like this.

I find it helps to look at historical examples: any others?