This sounds worse: www.timesonline.co.uk/.../article3635455.ece. You forgot to link to the other, more important Timesonline article. Excerpt:

"If [Basra's overrun], any hope of the withdrawal promised by Gordon Brown last year of another 1,500 British troops this spring will have to be shelved until Basra can be stabilised. It may even be necessary to reinforce the British contingent with more combat troops, something that the Ministry of Defence can ill afford as it prepares for the fighting season in Afghanistan.

The only other option would be for Britain to admit finally that it has lost the fight in southern Iraq. That would mean an ignominious withdrawal and handing over control of Basra to the Americans, who grudgingly would have to take over responsibility for the south.

*** As American officers and officials have privately made clear, much of today’s problems in Basra can be traced back to Britain’s failure to commit the forces necessary to control Basra and southern Iraq in general. ***

Whereas President Bush’s “surge” tactic of sending 30,000 reinforcements to central Iraq has succeeded in bringing down the level of violence in Baghdad and Anbar province, the Americans believe that the gradual withdrawal of British troops from the south has had the opposite effect, a point that Mr al-Maliki and his soldiers are discovering to their cost on the streets of Basra today..."

Britain's failure to reinforce troops in Basra and the all-too-predictable result give us a pretty good taste of what would (will) happen if (when) Obama follows the British example and withdraws US troops from the country generally.

Don't be surprised if this validation of the logic behind the surge helps, not hurts, McCain.  

It would appear that John McCain is right.  The only way to pacify Iraq is a 100-year occupation.  But can he sell it to the American people?

Time for someone to start talking Biden's soft partition plan seriously.

Yeah, folks, that's the way it is in war.  You don't declare victory and leave.  You have to actually win.

There is no escaping these sons of bitches.  I don't know where the Out of Iraqers now think they're going to go.

Yes, tepluk, excellent point.

We ought to thank Gordon Brown for giving a little micro demonstration of what happens when you run.

Gee, we should have tried this in 1943.  We could have ended WW2 24 months early.

Actually Channy we won in Iraq. I wasn't sure that "making Sunnis and Shia like each other" was a victory condition.

Soft partition, amen. But you still need to do counter-insurgency. Soft partition doesn't = withdrawal, it entails redeployment.

Actually Chan it's more of a demonstration that not having a strategic goal in mind when invading a country leads to mission creep. What was the point of the invasion? WMDs and flaunting of UN accords. Both of those are taken care of. What's the victory condition/end game in Iraq?

BSD

Okay Chan, be honest about what it will take to stay in Iraq.  Institute a draft and then tax the public to pay for this ill gotten war we adults started.  I have two children of elementary school age.  I'm sick of warmongers starting this catastrophe, egging it on on a lie and sticking my kids with the bill and the mess.  If you can't sell it then no way will we stay in there and no reason to stay there.

Charlie Rangel was right, there should be a draft for fighting this fiasco.  I say send the Bush twins in first followed by the Romeny boys and every other pube with able bodied children.  That would be a good start.  At least the Brits sent in a royal into harm's way.

And bsdespain is right.  The goal was topple Saddam, find the WMDs and dispose of them and then create a democracy.  All three done, mission accomplished and the war was won.  No one told us the mission was stopping a civil war.

bsd, the victory condition is for the Iraqis to hail George Bush as their liberator and rename the main street Bush avenue. The Chinese have a saying "kill the chicken and show the monkeys" that is, if we took out Saddam and left Iraq than you can damn sure it would have scared the hell out of the Middle East. But all we have done is after killing the chicken is let the chicks peck us half to death. My grandchildren will be paying for this war, that is if it is still not going on then, and may kids are 5 and 3.

As of now, Tep is right, we should redeploy to Kurdistan, and a few FOB's elsewhere. At worst, the Shia will kick the hell out of the sunnis with Irans help.

And channy, we have declared victory and left, we did it in Kosovo (hell, we never even entered) we did it in Gulf War 1 (or was that not a victory?) we did it in Panama and Grenada and the Philippines and...I could go on.

As BSD asks, what is victory in Iraq? You know full well as soon as we leave they will go back to a dictatorship so we have to stay there forever to see that never happens?

The average Iraqi gets more spent on him by our government then the average American.

roi -

I don't think that's what he said, just exactly, but nevertheless you are right about the partition plan.  Hopefully McCain is a smart enough hawk to realize that.  Withdrawal is not the answer - witness Basra - but neither is a 100-year occupation, which is all the current incremental changes can give us.  We need a great leap forward; we need a change in strategy that uses the current state of Iraq as the starting point and seeks the best way forward, with all options on the table, rather than continually trying to bring back the state we shattered five years ago.   I hope McCain sees that - he's the only one, I think, who can make it happen.  Clinton and Obama are already too invested in complete (eventual, yes, but sooner rather than later) withdrawal, regardless of what it leaves behind.

"There is no escaping these sons of bitches. I don't know where the Out of Iraqers now think they're going to go."

Well, if one were to focus cold-bloodedly on U.S. national security, we can be pretty sure that these SOBs are not going to go anywhere. They're not fighting for control of Basra or Sadr City because they can't find Chicago on a map or cannot afford air fair to Atlanta. They're fighting for control of Basra or Sadr City because they want to control Basra or Sadr City. What's it to the price of bread in Topeka whether these corrupt Shiite thugs in Baghdad or the other corrupt Shiite thugs in Baghdad control this or that section of Baghdad?

Of course conditions _in Iraq_ would get worse if we pulled out quickly. But would the worsening of conditions _in Iraq_ really be all that bad for U.S. national security? And if so, then we're f'ed, because no matter who becomes president in January, he or she will begin a rapid reduction in troop levels in Iraq, almost certainly down to or below 60,000 by the end of calendar 2009, for the simple reason that there will not be enough ready units or equipment to sustain any higher deployment levels.

I get that a large minority of Americans would like to maintain high troop levels in Iraq until Sunni-Shiite and Arab-Kurd kumbayas have broken out and everybody has bought everybody else a Coke and taught the world to sing in perfect harmony. But the important question to ask is "You and what army?" The broken rump of an army that we will have available to deploy in Iraq by this time next year will make the current British garrison in Basra look positively robust.

Tep:

First, I apologize if my post sounds snarky. However. . . Forget it. See below.

What exactly does redeployment mean? And what tactical benefit does it obtain?

Is this more Wolfie/Fiethy videogame thinking?

Troops  redeployed to where?  Camp Buehring, Camp Arifjan, Camp Virginia, Ali Al Salem Air Base (Kuwait), Naval Support Activity (Bahrain), the Djibouti, UAE or Oman? Our troops are currently stationed all over the Middle East. What do you propose? Whenever a sectarian eruption occurs, troops are parachuted or helicopter in to intervene. (Excuse me, not a "sectarian" attack. No. An al Qaeda attack. Though that probability is statistically small.  Remember, Bush's Pentagon reported that al Qaeda is responsible for two percent of the violence in Iraq.) Add what has been spent on this fiasco since the declaration of "mission accomplished" to 10 more years of this ride-in-too-late-to-rescue policy and containing Saddam will seem a bargain.

I recently spent 30 days on a det in Bahrain and flew several missions to Kuwait, the UAE, Oman and Djbouti. Eye-opening. (I'd been to bases in Kuwait before, but until I became an aircrewman, wasn't aware of some of the logistical difficulties caused by our "friends" in the region.

Of course,  withdrawal is viewed as a precipitate action. Correct? The oil and security of the flow. Jeez. It's not particularly secure now. And the price of gasoline? Last I checked, gas prices were higher than in 2003.

Channy:

What's this "escaping" b.s.? I find it strange that groups engaged in a fight for power should be interested in exporting their war to our shores.  As for al Qaeda, it was pretty much nonexistent in Iraq until Bush-Cheney made the country safe for terrorists.

hey tec, great to see you.

tnmats:

Your argument won't fly. You'll hear talk of general's opposition to the draft, blah, blah, blah. But one wonders, if a war, especially one fought on a global scale--well, that's the term Bushco termed, yet farmed out the Afghanistan exercise to NATO, despite the fact that the brains of al Qaued resided there--is justified why not compel citizens to participate under the color of the military.

Worse still, we have national security liberals  or liberal hawks (you choose the epithet) such as Peter " I was willing to gamble, too--partly, I suppose, because, in the era of the all-volunteer military, I wasn't gambling with my own life" Beinart and Tep, who are young enough to enlist, yet refuse. (Before Bienart's lame apology for supporting the war, an army 2nd lieutenant, with the 3ID--this suggest he served two tours in Iraq--who read one of Beniart's books on how OTHER people should defend freedom, invited Petey to set the example and serve.

But patriotism in the face of danger is not Beinart's style. Better to think big thoughts and plot service members deaths as a fellow of the Council on Foreign Relations. Bienart wrote in his psuedo apology: It's a truism that American intellectuals have long been seduced by revolution." What's not to love? Read books, writing clever sophistries , performing TV talking head gigs and schoozing with CFR big wigs  poses little, if any danger.

Oh yeah. Remember Beinart's book entitled "The Good Fight: Why Liberals---and Only Liberals---Can Win the War on Terror and Make America Great Again ?"  I didn't read that dreck, however, I suspect Beinart wasn't referring to he and his friends doing any  of the heavy lifting. I guess, they plan to direct,craft policy and advise, thehundreds of thousands military members who self-identify Republican. Clever, clever.

Except that the non-serving/combat avoiding Republican powers that be already thought of that. Witness Bush, Cheney, Wolfowitz, Feith, etc.

Hey blackie. How is it going?

Hey tep, off topic, but just curious, after this speech:

video.on.nytimes.com

Can we count on the end of your bitching about Obama and an articulate vision of the economy?

Or shall we look forward to continued bitching.

tec - the goal should be to get to something closer to what's been achieved in Bosnia and Kosovo. Not wildly succesful, not jeffersonian democracy, just a post-cleansing situation that's more or less stable, more or less under control. IIRC NATO still has a few 000 troops patrolling those regions. The figure I've seen for a partitioned Iraq is ~50k troops. That's not equivalent to "withdrawal", not by a long shot.

mmathog - glad to see it, that's a step forward, had a quick reaction to his less-than-confidence-inspiring decision to focus on repeal of Glass Steagall on the Noam S. thread, more later.

Separately, I think someone at the Times has a wicked sense of humor. The transcript of Obama's speech reads, "the well-being of American business (OOTC:ARBU)"

Poor ol' ARBU's been beaten up by Mr Market lately. Sounds like it's a buy now.

tec, glad to see you're alive and well and in good fighting spirit. You stateside or in the middle east?

tep, I'm stateside--have been since March.

I'm not sanguine on a Bosnia/Kosovo model for Iraq.  Ah, permit me to amend that assessment. An Iraqi Kurdistan seems doable. Consolidating Mosul, however, worries me more than Turkey's opposition to an independent Iraqi Kurdistan. Two plusses: 1)Turkish businesses have invested tens of millions-- in response to the Kurds invitations--in Iraqi Kurdistan's economy; 2) The Iraqi Kurds got their act together in 1996 (i,e., largely ending their internecine conflict) and have proven most amenable to democracy.

Moreover, the Sunni Awakening program is an exercise in leasing peace. Not at all comforting. And what of Baghdad?  The Iraqi power center is home to most of the Sunnis and to Shiʿites. They are adept at killing each other. They both have large stakes in controlling the country and our troops are just getting in the way.

matt - read the speech, it was a decent effort, the regulatory suggestions are sensible, worthy. The rest of it's boilerplate, nothing interesting or insightful or bold. All in all a decent first effort, but many more q's to come. Devil's in the (tax overhaul) details. Not sure I'd provide details if I were a candidate, but still, he needs to realize that "middle class" in the heartland doth not equal "middle class" on the ridiculously overpriced coasts. Don't soak us. We're not rich.

I don't have a major problem with the idea that we should withdraw most of our troops from Baghdad and move many of them to the north and to Basra. And the others to Afghanistan, pronto.

One way to move the ball down the road would be to gin up a war with Iran and its proxies in Lebanon and Gaza. Not too much ginning is needed, I'd say. Do what Cheney and the neocons are longing to do and start - excuse me, preemptively initiate - a regional war, where we can use our deservedly famous shock and awe strategy to persuade moderate Iranians to overthrow the mullahs and Dr. A. Then we can remove the real block to democracy in the ME. From there, Afghanistan would logically be next, though Pakistan might need to be dealt with - a war with U.S. backed India could do it if we plan it right this time.

tec, same as Tep, glad to see you are fine is all.

Oh, I forgot Russia - we could finally regain our coalition partners in Europe to make a clean sweep (along with Central Asian republics). And we could free Tibet while we're at it.

The only thing standing in the way of success in Iraq is lingering doubts about whether we really can succeed in the long run. World War would be a more attractive option, since after all we won WWs I and II.

Damn.

tec619, why are you just critical of Beinart?  Last I checked he was not the one that started the war.  He may have cheered the neocons on but he didn't start it.  And in Congress, the Republicans and the Republican White House hatched the plan and brought on this quagmire.  They should be the ones to go first into battle.  Since our "fearless leader" thought it "romantic" being over there, when he's out of a job in January he can volunteer.

Look, I know that a draft and a tax won't fly.  That is why I'm trying to drive the point home: if this "war" is so important to the country, then all of us should have some sacrifice.  The entire US populace should get behind this war like the country did in WWII.  I see a repeat of Viet Nam with this war.  The economic wounds took decades to heal (if ever really), and the emotional wounds have never really healed.

And I'm sick and tired of this shirt sleeve mickey mouse faux patriotism.  If you believe this war is right, then put your money where your mouth is and make everyone sacrifice.  Inflict some pain on the public like those US soldiers and their families have to every day.

tnmats, I agree with you.  We are on the same page. I was merely alerting you to some of the arguments against the draft that you'll read on these threads--I've made them, several times.

I know Beinart didn't start the war (I wrote: "Except that the non-serving/combat avoiding Republican powers that be already thought of that. Witness Bush, Cheney, Wolfowitz, Feith, etc.") but I reserve special hate for liberal pundits who served, in a fashion, as enablers of Bush by articulating defenses for his Oedipal Iraq war.  (Do you think I read anything by Christopher Hitchens?)

Beinart actually wrote a piece criticizing Vietnam vet Colin Powell's  reluctance to embrace Iraq 2 (sigh. Powell turned into an unprincipled sellout in the end) by implying that war experience didn't count for much.

Apparently, books, television and an Oxford MA in international relations and a lack of military service are a better substitutes for real world experience. Like the vast majority of the liberal hawks, Peter doesn't have a lick of real-world expereince, which is helpful when one needs to advocate for others to risk their lives for dubious reasons.  Who else can I think of? Former CBO number cruncher morphed into defense policy and war strategist Michael O'Hanlon. Kenneth Pollack, another war strategist based on paper-pushing at the CIA and his expertise on the Persian Gulf (or as the Arabians say: Arabian Gulf) and Iran in particular. Kenny doesn't speak a word of Arabic, nor Persian. Two more examples of third-rate advice provided by second-class minds.

Oh, and the list of conservative "experts"(?) is just as long. And they also seem to believe that  staying out of uniform and cowardice improves their understanding of defense policy and strenghtens their resolve to agitate for war.

tnmats, I think you have it right about full participation. The problem is not that it has cost too much to stay the course, it's that has not cost enough. It's bad morally to make some suffer so the rest can live their lives as though nothing appreciable or meaningful was at stake. It's also corrupt. As the occupation extends indefinitely, there will be more profiteering (as if there weren't enough already).

The case for starting the war for the most part was empty of sober consideration as the occupation was vacant of due diligence. To this day I think the evidence supports criminal prosecution, at least impeachment. And that's not just a snarky liberal's wanting to avenge anything. We went to war based on little less than an utter fantasy and a nightmare ensued. Whatever strategy may best be followed now should dispel the nightmare by getting real with our situation. That's why I support an immediate and full withdrawal. It's not what I expect will happen, but we need to do a realistic accounting of the costs of staying, and I don't believe that will happen as long as by remaining mainly to fully unconscious of the costs we can still hope of a happy ending.

tec, I agree with you about liberal writers like Beinart.  I almost dropped my subscription to TNR over the Iraq fiasco/quagmire. I'm sick and tired of bleating faux "patriots" that say we stay in that fiasco no matter what.  They pass the bills to the 10 year olds in this country and make a small contingent of families bear all the burden.  Meanwhile, he Bushes and Romneys of this country get bailed out when they get in trouble by the Fed or are given tax giveaways and other subsidies.

tomeg,  I agree with you 200%.  I'm sick of the hypocrisy in this country.  The Dems are guilty of it to a certain extent, but the repug enablers of that criminal in 1600 Penn have a special place in hell I'm hoping.  Those slime got us in this mess and refuse to do what's right to really fight that "war".  And what galls me the most is how stupid the public was to buy it and not get rid of the entire contingent that got us in the mess.

Am I mad as hell?  Absolutely.  I can tolerate a lot but I cannot tolerate a hypocrite.  And that's what I see whenever I see that waste of protoplasm in 1600 Penn.  I hope there's a special place in hell for it when it finally leaves this Earth.

tec619, if you want Beinart's current views on his original stance on the Iraq War, I suggest you actually DO read "The Good Fight." He acknowledges that he went over the line. More to the point, he makes thoughtful analyses of where Iraq went wrong, not just complaining about Bush. Your hatred for an entire genre of liberal hawks comes from seeing them at their worst. You owe it to yourself to see them at their best.

rozenson, I'm aware Beinart changed his views. However, that's the problem.  In a non-conscription era, people like Peter can maintain essentially cost-free ideals and ideology.  He's a clever boy, and persuasive writer.

Nonetheless, he employed his talents to support a war  that, despite Saddam's evil, shouldn't have been engaged. War supporters focus on Saddam's nefarious deeds but is he exclusive in that regard? I don't hear them advocating invading Zimbabwe or, say, that beacon of human rights, China.  (Oh, now the so-called national interest and pragmatism of real politick hold sway.)

Any honest person should admit that Bushco harbored ulterior motives (and I'm not referring to "oil"--more on that later) for attacking Iraq. None of which, were articulated to the American people. As far as I'm concerned, lies undermine the entire enterprise.

I know Peter criticized the Bush's mishandling of the war (should one expect any better from that failing upwards loser?) and offered a mea culpa. However, a reappraisal after the adventure went FUBAR isn't exactly a profile in courage.  And his, admittedly frank mea culpa was of little use to me. What of our war DEAD and the disfigured and maimed? Last I checked, the dead don't reanimate and humans can't regenerate limbs.

Beinart sometimes used a sardonic and supercilious tone against war detractors. Worse, he had to know the Bush administration was lying.  An arm-chair evaluation of Dubya oedipal conflict should have been enough to give him pause.  If not that, then knowledge of the political leanings of Wolfie, Feith, PERETZ, Pohoretz , the amoral Cheney and that craven slam-dunk artist Tenet  and the rest of the gang should have been enough to engender serious skepticism. (Combined military service? ZERO;. Draft deferments? Well, Cheney alone has five.As for Wolfie, Dougie and Martin, I don't know. But I-was-a-draft-dodging pantywaist-before I turned-into-a-jingoistic-war-of-choice-monger, doesn't buy my respect.)

Look, I understand where Beinart is coming from on the subject of the Democrats' poor national defense image post-Vietnam.  But the Iraq 2 invasion? Gimme a break.  Sure, Bush used post 9/11 sentiment to scare and manipulate Democratic pols and the idiots in the MSM. But Beinart, et al?

I can't believe no one found Bush's Saddam hard-on the least bit unseemly. Let's take a look:  The guy's dad had a beef with Saddam, led a "real" coalition that defeated him but was roundly upbraided for "honoring" his promise to just evict Iraqi forces from Kuwait.  Dubya, the also-ran takes office, and next thing we know 9/11 is a Saddam plot (all implied, of course). Our no-fly zone allowed Hussein to build WMD. (Deployed how? ICBMs? Long-range bombers, fueled by the Iraqi's air force's aerial re-fuelers? Or did Saddam's bombers have overflight and landing rights throughout Europe and Asia?