Can McCain win on Iraq?

No, he can't, because the Democratic framing on Iraq will be on the competence of the Republicans who have been handling Iraq - not on whether we should stay there. And this administration has convinced the electorate that they are stunningly incompetent. There is nowhere to go but up. Anyone can manage Iraq better than the Republicans. McCain can't stand by Bush on Iraq AND dodge  the competency question.

coters? I don't think people are sticking with Bush on Iraq, but are sticking with McCain who has been a vociferous critic of Bush about Iraq for years, mollifying centrists by being opposed to torture and gitmo and the right for being right about the need for troop increases.

McCain will run as a conservative Democrat in the fall. Get used to hearing phrases like independent and maverick. If he runs as a Scoop Jackson he can win, but if he goes the old Stonewall Jackson route (appealing to the southern base crowd) then he will lose.

If Republicans can win on Iraq then America deserves all that entails.  Failed politics and an opposition which ought to change their name from Democratic party to the party of MORONS.  It is pathetic and ought to be the ending epitaph of the current Republican party that when "the war" is spoken of the subject is assumed to be Iraq.

Uh, Matt "winning" may be hard to define.  But, losing will be damn evident.

If Obama or Hillary go into office and remove American trrops any time soon, you will see a bloodbath and a possible destabilization of the Middle East that no one will be able to miss.

And if you think Obama/Hillary and the Democrats will then be able to blame it all on the Republicans, you are lacking in media imagination.

The Democrats are kidding themselves if they think that either of their candidates will be able to painlessly extricate us from Iraq with out stupendous negative consequences for the country, the Democratic party, and their own presidency.

Sorry, Matt-O, you guys are living in another dimension.

People disapprove of *Bush's* handling of the war doesn't mean they are set against winning the war or having it handled better. If McCain can make a good case for virtually ending the casualties, reducing the force commitment to one the military can sustain and maintain readiness abroad, and persuade voters that  leaving altogether would effectively hand the country over to Iran, he could turn a losing issue into a winning one. Democrats are historically perceived to be weak on defense, and that hasn't changed.

Chan,

You're not really giving us a whole lot of credit here.  Nobody thinks we can "painlessly" extricate ourselves from Iraq.  The Dems, including Obama and Hillary, are well aware of the potential negative consequences of withdrawal.  And of course the potential negative consequences of staying should be clear by now.  There are no good options on Iraq at this point.  There are bad options and worse options.  We obviously disagree about which one is which, but I think most Dems are well aware that there isn't a magical solution to this.

Chan, there's a difference between trying to finesse a number of sensitive areas in order to tell the truth to the American people, and living in a fantasy world.  We have created a situation that we can't control (see Iraq and Iran), can't increase military forces in (see pressure on Army and USMC) and can't withdraw forces from (see your post).

The real questions are (a) do people realize this?  And (b) is there some kind of maneuver out there that would extract us so that 70% of our land forces isn't tied up in one country babysitting an ethnic war?

I think the latest Patreaus, Crocker gig went well all the way round. I don't mind a bit the Iraqi congress hearing displeasure and frustration. Anything to get them off of the dime. I'm not sure which speaker pointed out that recovery from 35 years of Baathist dictatorship is not a small thing and figures mightily in the slow paced resolution of this thing. Well.....and not to mention Iran and AQI and various other players fighting for a piece of the action.

Yeah. The Pubs can win on foreign policy. If the public gets a whiff of the dems playing partisan pessimism on both the economy and the war effort John McCain will be the next president. If I were to offer Obama any advice it would be to play it as straight as he has been in his better moments.

AlanSP, the reason I'm not "giving you credit here," and you're right, is that the closer we get to the potentiality of a Democratic president, the vaguer the Dem candidates get about getting out of Iraq.  And, it amuses me no end.

Back in '06, during the mid-terms, the Dems talked big time about "dates certain" and "timetables" for removing the troops from Iraq.  They talked big because they thought there were more votes to win with such talk than to lose.

They also knew they wouldn't have to actually act on such talk any time soon.  And when Dems took over the Congress, sure enough, they disappointed their voters to whom they had made dishonest promises and didn't do butkhus except prattle some more.  

At the beginning of the presidential campaign, way too many months ago to stand, the Dems talked pretty explicitly about getting out.  Now, as we get close to a maybe Dem prez, the two left stading get vaguer and vaguer.  

Why?  Because they're full of it.  And also because the Surge did materially change the situation on the ground in Iraq.  Something Senator Clinton called General Petraeus a liar for claiming would be the case.

The Democrats have been playing politics with Iraq, with American lives, and with America's future for several years now.  It is reprehensible.  And, if I'm not "giving credit" it is because I intend to diss the Democrats as unambiguously as I can for their craven dishonesty.

And it is why, in the end, I don't think there is going to be a Democratic president next year.  There has not been a trustworthy Democratic candidate for president about since Jack Kennedy.

Well, maybe Mondale was trustworthy.  I think he's a decent man.  Not very inspiring, though.

irony, "can't is a word usually used by people who won't.

You write, "...We have created a situation that we can't control (see Iraq and Iran), can't increase military forces in (see pressure on Army and USMC) and can't withdraw forces from (see your post)."

We can do all of those things.  But we would have to have the will to do it.  In 1941-1945, we fought a multi theater war around the world, had ten million men under arms, a thousand ships covering both oceans.  And did it all with 1/3rd the economy and less than half the population.

I guess we'll have to wait until iran sticks a nuke up our butts before we feel sufficiently motivated to do what's necessary.

Let's hope it's not too late when we've lost the center of a couple of major cities, probably one in mid Mahattan, and another next to the Capitol bldg or the White House.  Some raghead in a beat up van will do the deed.

Indeed, and unfortunately 140,000 troops in Iraq are worth precisely zero in the war against "some raghead in a beat up van."

The Democrats need to differentiate between two issues: yes, it was a big mistake to go into Iraq with such poor planning and mismanage the war, but going forward it will be just as disastrous to leave abruptly.  We have created a mess in the mideast and it would be very irresponsible to walk away from it.  Look at a map of the mideast.  Iraq is shaped like an arrow pointing straight at Tel Aviv.  It was bad enough having Saddam Hussein running the country.  Imagine the vacuum when we leave.  Can you say World War Three? Democrats, wake up.  Stop fretting and fuming over the stupidity of what has happened because of Bush's incompetence and look at the future of the problem.  You can't reverse what has happened and go back to square one.  We need to go forward with what is now and try to steer this into something that prevents complete chaos in the middle east.  Yes, it will cost more lives and more money.  Yes, it will require sacrifice.  The alternative is a continual slide down the hill of the Fall of the American Empire where no one will ever trust us again.  

Not true, irony, because the raghead is not going to invent a nuclear weapon  himself.  It is not going to centrifuges in the raghead's spiderhole that yield the plutonium necessary.

It will be the likes of Iran is enormous pressure is not put on same, that will eventually supply such weapons to third party actors.

The only means we have currently to counter this is to quietly get the word to the Iranians that if a nuclear event ever took place, we would assume they were the authors of it unless proven otherwise.  And would retaliate in kind, but with extreme disproportionality.  

There is a way out of Iraq and it has been there from the start -- de facto partition and a balance of military power between the Sunni, Shia, and Kurd factions, with some American air power in the wings in case the balance gets unbalanced.  This would, however, require abandoning the fantasy that there was ever anything to accomplish by invading Iraq.  We therefore decline to take the way out because it would make it perfectly clear that the whole thing has been strategically pointless.  

Any war short of total war must have a strategic purpose.  Otherwise, it is impossible to win because there was never anything to be won.  That is Iraq, leaving all questions of morality aside.  We invaded on a bunch of phony pretexts.  We sit there in the military twilight zone essentially waiting for some strategic purpose to appear, wasting American lives, treasure, and hopelessly compromising our ability to deal with real threats.  Is George Bush the worst president ever?  Overwhelmingly so.  Never has any idiot squandered so many resources of every kind in a mere eight years.  He has reduced the economic giant and sole super-power to beggary in that time.  Please, please oil sheikdoms, won't you give us some money to bail out our financial system?

wieloo, we are watching the decline and fall of the American Empire for all the classic reasons -- the extreme greed of the ruling class, fatally undermining national solidarity, combined with strategic over-reach.

Chan

You don't like the Dems for not being honest about how to get out of Iraq?  I despise the Republicans for lying us in there and keeping us there for no better reason than to postpone the admission that it was one big clusterf*** from the start.  You think the Dems are to blame for not cleaning up the latest Republican mess?  Not hardly.  To clean it up, we need at the minimum a Democratic Congress and President.  If that doesn't happen, it will all drag on and on and on, young American lives wasted in the desert for the glory of the utterly corrupt, despicable Republican party.  They are worse than a plague.  You seem to confuse mere pettifogging with actual hardcore savagery, a strange set or priorities.  And you seem quite righteous about it to boot.

Chan, I agree that a robust deterrence, if matters can't be resolved any other way, would involve the Iranians believing that they would be the target of immediate and extensive retaliation if even a whisper of suspicion attached to Iran in the case of a terrorist nuke.

The biggest danger would be, of course, an anti-Iranian group with a nuke from Pakistan or even some obscure chain leading back to a crumbling Russian military depot, that wanted to kill two birds with the one stone:  attack us, and bring destruction raining down on Iran.  To avoid that should be motive enough for U.S.-Iranian negotiations.

However, there are two radically separate issues here:  one, the Iraq war, and two, the problem posed by Iran.  The presence of large amounts of troops does absolutely nothing in the war against the "raghead" threat because our presence has increased the number of "ragheads" worldwide, revealed our political and structural weaknesses to the neighboring nation, and shown that we are completely and embarrassingly unable to prevent Iraq-Iran cooperation from proceeding apace.

As I said on another thread where Barbara Boxer's comments were under discussion:  we don't get kisses at the airport because we're the smelly peasant looking after the sheep and Iran is the energetic suitor with the bouquet of Shi'a flowers.

I agree with you that the downside of Neo-MAD deterrence is a counterfeit actor.

But that actor has to know that NeoMad is "operative".  And we ought not ever make that public.

Second, Neo-MAD, properly applied makes our problem Iran's problem.  Therefore, Iran will have to expend resources, intelligence, counter-espionage, counter-terrorism, etc to make sure nobody sets them up as the patsy.

And, theoretically, Iran, being part of that region, is in a much better position to do a good job it it then we.

I hope early NeoMad has already been implimented.  Tehran ought to be made to worry even more than we do.

Which is what mad Old-MAD work the last time.

All the postulates whether by roid who is hostile, or irony who is more dispassionate, assume that if we had not invaded Iraq everything would have been in stasis for the past five years.

That Saddam would not have had ideas put in his head by 11 September.  That he would not have taken advantage of the situation caused by 9-11 not only in the US, but elsewhere in the West.

And it assumes that he had not been aiding or abetting terrorists.  There is evidence that he had been.  And the success of 9-11 would have encouraged him to redouble such efforts.  Especially if we shoewed ourselves unwilling, even after the extreme provocation of 11 September to go on the offensive bigtime.

The Dems can't count on continual exclusive bad news emphasis on the part of the news media. This despite the fact that there is a bit of a love affair with Obama. Witness Charlie Rose's conversations with John Burns and Dexter Filkins last night. Guys who were there from the git go and documented all of the ups and then mostly downs which proceeded apace. Their tune is, while not pollyanna-ish, decidedly more intrigued with the possibility of an Iraqi success. Emphasis being a ground up phenomenon where as the extreme elements play out, with a little help from our friends, the ordinary folks who just want to live in peace and the pursuit of happiness begin to assert themselves with an embrace for the concept of representative politic.

Such an intrigue is a much bigger story than how Bush fucked up.That's old news as John McCain has and will happily  tell you. Just the other side of that myopic equation is the implication that the Dems are willing to screw the pooch for colloquial reasons.

Ah, chanrobt worries about all the alternative universes that might have happened if we had not invaded in Iraq while unable to recognize the disaster that has occurred in the actual universe that we inhabit.  It takes a strange form of blindness to believe that our strategic position has in any way been improved by the invasion of Iraq and its aftermath.  According to chan, it was all about the things that Iraq might have gotten up to, but wasn't, if we had not invaded.  

I find it difficult to imagine a more implausible way of protecting the United States from its enemies.  I'm not "hostile," chan, for no reason.  I find war crimes deplorable.  I find killing young Americans and thousands of Iraqis for no reason other than to protect the political position of the Republican party deplorable.  Don't you?

And how sir do you explain your hostile smears of Democrats merely for failing to tell what you deem the truth about the horrific disaster created by the Republicans?  Your views are a charming analogue of the news reported over on the Spine that Israel has "raised tensions" with a civil defense drill, while the same news outlets don't consider rocket fire to be "raising tensions."  In the Alice in Wonderland world you Republicans inhabit of defending Republican corruption at any price to the nation and to the truth, you blame the Democrats for failing to speak clearly about the Republican horror show while blithely indifferent to the horror show itself.  Not a horror show you say.  In some alternative universe it could have been worse.

Having nothing meaningful to say in defense of your Orwellian double-speak, you dismiss the problem as one of "hostility" to the Republican party.  Damn right.

If Democrats ever picked up a history book, they would know that there have been nations with great internal crisies and civl wars that are no longer in that state.

These include:  Russia, Greece, Yugoslavia, England, Ireland, France.  And the United States of America.

Whatever Iraq was or is, it's not always going to be.  And we can be in a position to managed this evolution to the advantage of the M.E. and the West.

roid, no "war crimes" were committed.  And, in fact, we liberated a large nation from a very nasty tyrant.  Two nations in fact.  

The mistake was not sending 500,000 troops as during the first Gulf War.  If success had come quickere, we wouldn't be hearing anything about "war crimes".

The rationalizing gets even better!  We invaded Iraq because, in an alternative universe, Hussein would have been doing all the things we said he was doing, but he wasn't.  But, no matter, because now we will be able to "manage' Iraq, despite all the evidence that we are utterly unable to do any such thing.

Apparently you believe that we can justly invade another nation that has not attacked us or threatened to attack us, kill tens of thousands of its civilians, depose its government, impose a new one, all merely so that we can "manage" the evolution of that nation to our own, that is the West's, advantage.  That doctrine, which finds zero support in any concept of international relations, is more than ample enough to justify al Qaeda's destruction of the World Trade Center.  After all, they are merely trying to manage the evolution of the United States and the West to the advantage of the Moslem world.

"Aggressive war" is a war crime.  Invading another nation without the authorization of the UN Security Council and in the absence of any bona fide right of self-defense is aggressive war.  In this case, there is the additional problem that the entire thing was arranged by deliberate deception of the US public, the UN, and the world.

"If success had come quicker .  .  . "  As one of these blogs said about Hillary, I think, "If my grandmother had wheels, she'd be a bus."  Since the entire undertaking was based on false premises and had no achievable strategic purpose from the start -- as would have been perfectly obvious to one and all  had Bush and Co. not been lying about WMDs and terrorists -- there was no possibility of "success" coming quickly, or slowly, or ever.  There was never any success to be had and there is none now, other than getting out as soon as possible in a manner that reduces as far as possible the blood that will be shed as Iraq moves into a stable political configuration -- one that will surely have at most a figleaf of a central government and the Shia portion of which will have close relations with Iran.  Not at all what we want for our own advantage but far better than consuming our own military, diplomatic, financial, and strategic resources in the futile pursuit of a democratic Iraq allied with us -- something that will not occur in our lifetimes if ever.

If Republicans ever bothered to read a history book, they would understand that Iraq is a political entity cobbled together from three provinces of the defunct Ottoman empire solely for the purpose of facilitating British control over the oil under its sands.  It is little different from Yugoslavia in that regard -- and has parallel origins in the Treaty of Paris -- and is no more destined to remain intact than was Yugoslavia.  Beyond that, there is no particular reason why we should prefer a unified Iraq to a partitioned Iraq, soft or hard, except that a nominally unified Iraq allows Bush and the Republican party to pretend that there was some purpose in invading it in the first place.  If it came apart, it would be obvious to all that there was none.  Hence, we remain there with our finger in the dike trying to hold back the flood and spending ourselves in the doing.

This is STUPID!  We are exhausting ourselves in a pointless undertaking while failing to deal with much more important threats of both an economic and military nature.

You are surely right that Iraq, and the US, will not endure in their present form forever.  That implies absolutely nothing about the optimal, or even a good rather than self-defeating, strategy for defending the US and maintaining its place in the world, neither of which we are now doing.

But, hey, keep the spin coming.  A few more years of this and our position will be unrecoverable -- like the Ottoman, British, and Russian empires before us.

Let's not lose sight of one crucial consideration.  The bills for Bush's war of choice are coming due in more ways than one, and it will soon become impossible to sustain the current effort without demanding substantial sacrifices from the American people.  Bush has only been able to tamp down public opposition by, one one hand, creating monumental budget deficits and keeping the true cost of the war off the books, and on the other hand by sending back the same troops for tour after tour, offering huge cash incentives for enlistment, dropping enlistee standards and privatizing as much of the war effort as he can get away with.  At least for now, Iraq is more abstraction than reality for the vast majority of Americans.  That can't continue.  The current Administration strategy is nothing more than a cynical effort to run out the clock, cost and American lives be damned, in order to dump the problem into the lap of the next President.

McCain has been getting a free ride, not so much as some say because the press is biased, as because he locked up the nomination early.  Once the Democrats have their nominee, be it Hillary or Obama, that will change.  Before rushing to judgment, I want to see how Mr. Straight Talk squares the circle and is forced to explain to the American people just how much pain his stay-the-course prescription will require.

Roid. You are every republican strategists dream come true. They would happily elect you spokesman for the Democratic party and have you detail your grievances. All they would then have to do is an historically accurate exploration of the Iraq situation dating back to the origins of this conflict circa 1991, or thereabouts.

waynejm. All wars are of choice. I'd say you would be well advised to heed Mr. Chait's pause before your partisan blind confidence on this issue. But then, that's just me.

additionally roid. There was an anecdote related by John Burns to the effect that the second most concentrated gunfire he had ever heard was when Iraq beat Asia (or some such) in a soccer match. Implication being that Iraq, despite its historical origins, does indeed have a sense of nationalism and pride in state. Needless to say that identity has been bent and perverse but exists nonetheless.

box - There are wars of necessity (e.g., WWII) and wars of choice (Vietnam, Iraq).  Iraq was sold to the American people under false pretenses as a cakewalk, with a series of new rationales given as the previous one was discredited.  But we broke it, we own it now, to paraphrase Colin Powell.  Fair enough.

The shortcoming with Chait's observation is that it is simply a snapshot of today's political landscape.  It's easy and relatively cost-free to support the war if you or your kids aren't the ones fighting it, and if you're not in precarious economic straits such as would cause you to question the economic black hole that the war has become.  

Bottom line, I agree with Chait's observation that the position staked out by Obama is likely the best that the Dems can do.  But I don't believe that it's anywhere near the uphill climb that he claims it is to sell that position to the electorate.  Who knows?  Maybe I'm wrong.  But no one is really in a position to make that call until we see how it plays out this fall.  If you want to draw a bright line here, I'd say it would be the first time McCain is asked whether he supports a military draft.  I for one can't wait to hear his answer.

Oh come on box, don't reduce the whole thing to the level of a soccer match.  If Iraqis want a unified nation, they are free to create one.  It isn't our job to do it for them.  Then they can all cheer for their soccer team.

A Republican's dream.  No pal, I am the Republicans nightmare.  When I actually go to compete with them in elections by running a campaign, we clean their clock.  I am not attempting here to fashion campaign rhetoric.  If I were, it would sound something like this:

"I am sorry to stand before you today and report that five years after the invasion of Iraq, with 4,000 young American lives lost and the lowest current estimates for the cost of this war now exceeding $1 trillion, we still have no strategy, none, for exiting Iraq.  In large part, this is a direct result of the the failures of the Bush administration at the outset, with its constantly changing rationale for the war.  If, as President Bush told us, there had really been weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, we would have destroyed them by now and left.  But there were not.  If, as President Bush told us, there had been terrorist networks in Iraq, we could have destroyed them by now without completely disrupting the government and stability of Iraq in the process, and left.  But there were not.  It is true that Saddam Hussein was a terrible tyrant who preyed on his own people, but there are many such in the world.  And Saddam Hussein's worst crimes were long over.  He was contained by the UN sanctions regime, even with its problems, and posed no immediate or even credible long-term threat to the United States.  We tolerate many awful regimes in the world because it cannot be the job of the United States, acting on its own, to spend the lives of its own young to depose them unless they pose a direct threat to us.  Saddam Hussein did not.  The job of the United States Armed Forces is to defend the United States of America, not to right the wrongs of the entire world.  That is a job too big even for us.  It is sad to recount that, because of the enormous failures of intelligence, planning, and execution of this war by the Bush administration, none, not a single one, of its rationales for the war holds any water.  And now we see the bitter fruit of a war undertaken without any genuine strategic purpose, a long, unending twilight war in which we continue to expend vast sums and take casualties, both deaths and terrible injuries to our soldiers, without any discernible progress or change.  It is therefore time to leave Iraq to the Iraqis.  It is surely possible that the result will be a civil war amongst the major factions, Sunni, Shia, and Kurd.  We should do what we can to establish a balance among them that makes such civil war less likely, but it is time for Iraqis to decide their own future.  We hope and will work toward a peaceful resolution, but, either way, it is time to announce our departure, allow a decent interval for the Iraqi people to accommodate themselves to the new reality that we will not be their to stand in the middle of their battles if they insist on violence, and then go.  We cannot build a nation in Iraq for the Iraqi people.  They must do it themselves."

Hear that sound?  It is the sound of the Republican party sinking beneath the waves, victim of its greed and incompetence.

No, boxofroxo, all wars are not "wars of choice."  The term has a meaning.  It refers to a war that is not a last resort and was used heavily by Thomas Friedman in his period of rationalization for the war -- based on bringing democracy to the middle east.

Roid. You dah man. I'm fairly sure your historical narrative would be Democrat friendly no matter what. Well I guess it takes all kinds to make a market.

Wouldn't that be wild if the Iraqis stood up and fashioned something resembling a representative government? I mean, really......a democratic country that was once a brutal dictatorship? In the ME? Really? No that can't be possible. Besides if it were to occur it would be in spite of Bush's war. Right, roid? You know. self determination and all that.

But like I say....you dah man.

Did y'all catch the whine act by Reid and Boxer? I mean, I consider myself a basically open to honest assessment of things political and they rarely disappoint to disappoint. By my lights anyway. Of course I'm just some kind of right wing droogie. Me and my lovely Ludwig Van aka Channy.

Yes, it would be something if the Iraqis stood up and fashioned a representative democracy in the Middle East.  They are welcome to do so, either before or after a civil war, and I will applaud if they do.  However, to keep killing our soldiers, destroying our own military capability, and undermining our capacity to deal with other more urgent threats than a lack of democracy in Iraq while waiting for this miraculous event to occur is the height of stupidity -- except that we are not doing it for that reason but only to save the political fortunes of the Republican party by postponing the recognition of this total debacle.

A far more realistic goal would be an Iraq, whether centralized or not, that is actually governed by entities that monopolize force and minimize violence.  We have clear evidence, from the experience of the Kurds in the north and the Anbar Sunni, that giving the factions the means necessary to defend themselves is the best way to accomplish this.  Given the means, and no preponderance of power in any faction, nor the practical ability of any faction to project power outside its own region, they will stabilize.  Whether what follows is some kind of federal union, the dissolution of Iraq into separate states is unclear.

Democracy is viable when a strong consensus of public opinion exists in its behalf.  It seems never to occur to the Republican masters of the universe who develop most of their policy ideas by watching John Wayne movies and reading Tom Clancy novels that the presence of US forces in Iraq in large numbers is actually preventing Iraq from reaching a stable political equilibrium in which the territory is governed.  That is not to say that achieving that equilibrium will be non-violent (not that the current situation is non-violent either), but if we got out of the way, the situation would come to a resting point, albeit that it is unlikely to be much of a democracy and will be influenced by Iran.  Tough.  The mythical democracy allied with the US never was a realistic goal for military action and isn't now.  The constant analogies with German and Japan in WWII are completely absurd.  They were completely defeated and we had 12 million men and women under arms to enforce our will.  

Time for the Republican party at least to grow up and stop acting as if we live in a cowboy movie or some fantasy world in which actions are efficacious to achieve are stated goals merely because we want it to be so.

Missed it.  But did y'all catch the comatose stumbling and bumbling by McDaddy, the man who would be president?  Heck, if FDR could be elected president with polio, why shouldn't McCain be elected president with incipient Alzheimer's?  

One thing is for sure, Iraq -- and its ongoing death, destruction, and loss -- are not the problem.   Nope,  The problem is whining about Iraq and its ongoing death, destruction, and loss.  In fact, I am sure that the debacle is actually caused by whining, not by Bush's deceit and incompetence.  

Yglesias is as leftie as they come.

Last year, it was the violence.  After the surge removed the violence, the bar was moved up.  In the fall, it was the lack of political movement.  Now that they've met 14 of the 16 metrics (set by Defeatocrats), the bar is moved up even more.

It absolutely sickens me how there are scumbags out there ready to throw out 5 years of effort and the lives and hopes of millions of iraqis just to confirm their worldview that America and Bush suck.  By what other measures is victory measured? Violence is down, The political process is moving.  Is Iraq = Disneyworld? No.  Will it ever be? Probably not.  But it's a damned sight better today than any other stinking country in the Middle East.  And by that measure alone, victory is achieved.  Hell, there were Japs on the Kurile islands fighting Americans 10 years after WWII cause they didn't know the war was over.  Does that mean America lost cause the last damned terrorist isn't killed?

People like Yglesias are absolute scum who contribute nothing to progress, even though they consider themselves "progressive. " Progress is bringing democracy to 28MM people.  Not writing about how we should talk to tyrants and "engage" them in political process.  By the way, how are those "Free Tibet" demonstrations going? Tibet free yet???

Well said jwl.  Since we are now victorious in Iraq, time to pack up and go home.  It's a damned set better than anyplace else in the ME and that's good enough for me.  Mission Accomplished!  Besides, we are going to need those troops for our imminent invasion of Tibet.  Time to show 'em all the futility of all that talk, demonstrations, left-wing crapola.

This time, though, let's have good Republican metrics for victory in Tibet so the war doesn't get loused up like the last one by all that bar raising.  

Nothing succeeds like throwing good money after bad.  Let's go!

Could we be SMART for once and fight this election on the terrain which we dominate instead of on terrain we have never, since 1964, come even close to dominating? We will not win this election on Iraq. If we win it, it will be because we have steered the discussion at every opportunity to the economy and health insurance, and _neutralized_ the GOP charges of softness and less-than-resolute devotion to cold hard realpolitik US national interest. And found a way to get beyond our pathetic obsession with identity politics.

It's the economy etc. Why are we making this so difficult for ourselves?

jwl2672,

In what sense is Iraq today better than any of the other countries in the Middle East? Violence in Iraq now is down compared to violence in Iraq before the surge, but can you point to any country in the Middle East with higher levels of violence?   Can you seriously say that Iraq, right now, is better off than Jordan, or the UAE?

roi -  jwl's right.  Iraq isn't Disneyland.

Among the stinking countries of the Middle East, Dubai is Disneyland. And Vegas as well.

Iraq will not be Disneyland until there's indoor skiiing in Baghdad.  Now that we've declared victory, it's just a matter of time.

I just hope they hurry up and finish before the exchange rate reaches 100,000 dollars to the dinar.

It goes without saying that "the economy" and to a lesser extent health care are the proper battleground.  The Dems need only remind the public from time to time that Bush got us into the mess in Iraq where there were no WMDs and no terrorists.  Nothing more is needed.  

But the rest of us can still talk about it.  

Ironically, tep, it is you who have pleaded for policy details about everything.  Now that the battle is being joined, it seems that you realize the wisdom of generalities when campaigning as details inevitably create opportunities for opponents with no comparable opportunity for (rhetorical) gain.

Who's making it difficult tep?  If questions come about the war, they shouldn't be ducked.  And it's worth pointing out that the war and the economy aren't happening in separate airtight containers.  There's a connection between our crumbling infrastructure, our non-21st century school system, and the fact that our global leadership credibility has been driven into a ditch by an administration who could never tell -- indeed, never wanted to tell -- the difference between conservative fantasy and the real world.

Roid. I'll agree with you in one regard. The breathtaking naivete' and subsequent lack of provisioning for all manner of likely and bad case scenarios. The failure to consider socio-economic mechanics which comprised survival beneath the boot of Saddam and sons was truly something to be astonished about. While naivete' is charming and defensible in some regards but in this situation proved deadly.

Perhaps allow me to agree a bit further and suggest that there is something to your saving face imperative which should have been easily understood. Thus few kisses and even a degree of resentment. Further Bush I and Stormin Norman blew it after Gulf ! by allowing Saddam to happily slaughter the Shia in the south. Their jubilations were turned to death and a deep distrust.

This is all a much more complicated situation than you will let on. I don't have the energy to hit the salient parts of further necessary exploration. See me in a few months. I'll be rested and ready to do battle. But till then feel free to burnish your kind of bona fides on behalf of the Democratic party.

waynejm,

Are you saying what I think  you are saying?  That the way out of Iraq is to build an indoor ski facility in Baghdad?  Well, it's the first time I've heard that suggestion, but it's a damn fine idea.  Maybe we could combine that with a Disney park.  Then we truly will be able to say Mission Accomplished with a straight face -- and go home.

Man, I'm sorry for being so aggravated.  But it is appalling how there are people who want to quit when the tipping point is almost reached.  In a year or two, the country will be secure enough for us to get the fudge out.  If we leave today, we'd be back there in 3 months.  And any thinking person knows it.  And the situation in 3 months would be absolute hell cause the damned Iranians would be trying to annex the country.

I cannot stand these naysayers because nothing will ever satisfy them.  Facts on the ground will never ever affect their views.  Hey, if Clinton or Obama were incredible military strategists, I'd vote for them in a second, irrespective of their views on health care or whatever.  If Iraq slides into a complete lost cause, I'd absolutely advocate leaving immediately.  But no sane person can say that it's a lost cause today.  Not when there are countless hundreds of stories of civilians helping out our troops and pointing out the bad guys.  Not when al qaeda is being pushed into the sea.  Remember those car bombs that went off 15 per day? That hasn't happened in a year.  Why are we advocating surrender when we're WINNING???

roi -

Indoor skiing is only the beginning. Envision a theme park built over the site of Nebuchadnezzar's hanging gardens.  They'll call it Babylonland.

Don't laugh.  They said in 1975 after Saigon fell that it was just a matter of time until the rest of the dominoes followed.  Now the Vietnamese can't get enough capitalism.  And don't get me started on China.

jwl,

Convenient that you think things will be secure enough in a year or two for us to get out, since that's about the time frame in which Obama has been advocating our (gradual) withdraw.  He takes office in January, begins withdrawing troops shortly afterwards, which will take place over maybe a year and a half.  There's a misconception here that if the Democrats had their way, we'd just pick up and get out as fast as our transportation could carry us.  That simply isn't the case.  In any event, this also raises the point that we really don't know at this point what the facts on the ground will look like when the next President takes office.

jwl - What about all those "incredible military strategists" - top military brass supporting Hillary or Obama, and those drummed out by the Bush regime for not supporting the party line - who see the war for the fiasco that it is and support withdrawal.  Or are the only credible military experts the ones that you agree with?

jwl's rule:  anyone he doesn't agree with is "scum."  See above.

Channy, what do you call 4,000 dead Americans, 29,000+ wounded and whatever number of Iraqis? A pool party? As for instability, thank goodness we have our fingers in the dike, huh? I don't call a country with car bombings on par with muggings, mortar and rocket attacks, militias, "criminal gangs" and whomever else my boys are fighting over there stability. And this is five years AFTER shrub declared an end to major combat operations.

If five years after the Germans and Japanese surrendered, there was 1) a drip, drip of GI dead and injured, 2)  aforce half the size of the original American invasion force  garrisoned under high security,  3) mortar and rocket attacks against US embassies in Berlin and Tokyo, 4) scores of recently massacred Jews, Gypsies, Filipinos and Chinese, to name a few, turning up in mass graves, and 5) a multimillion dollar JEEP up-armoring  program, few Americans would consider the U.S. victorious and Germany and Japan stable.

The only nominal "success" in Iraq is in the Kurdish region.  A salient aspect of the "relative" peace" and stability in Iraqi Kurdistan is that the aforementioned pre-dates the incompetent Buahies getting their maladroit hands on the region.

What was that Guiliani's Middle East adviser, Norman Podhoretz, asked Atlantic Monthly writer Jeffrey Goldberg? Oh, yes. “What’s a Kurd, anyway?”  Another bullshit expert. Priceless

jwl:

More of that pluralis majestatis (i.e., the word "we). "We" quit, eh? What have you done, or ever done in a martial capacity? All for the fight whe others have to do the heavy lifting. Whose you uncle? Cheney? Wolfowitz? Feith?

You war mongers kill me.  Eagerly embracing a romantic view of war and/or bravely and pragmatically (When your ass isn't on the line, why care?) willing taking the long view. (What's 7 years of war--without a draft?)

I know. Dammit, you are making a contribution. You're paying your taxes and proudly displaying you support the troops  magnetic ribbon.  So much safer--and smarter--than actual service.  

Well, the Great Bungler was also a cheerleader, and he served. Yes, Kill-a-commie Dubya skipped the active Air Force for a oversubscribed guard unit.  Then Bush, showed his appreciation by not completing all of his drills. Amazing. In wartime, when conscription was imposed. A prince. No, really. Isn't the U.S. a monarchy? (That liberal sucker Bill Bradley actually missed Knicks cames to fulfill his Air Force Reserve obligation.)

   * The White House used an inappropriate–and less stringent–Air Force standard in determining that President Bush fulfilled his National Guard duty.

   * Even using this lesser standard, the president did not attend enough drills to complete his obligation to the Guard during his final year of service.

   * During the final two years of his service obligation, Bush did not comply with Air Force regulations that impose a time limit on making up missed drills. Instead, he took credit for makeup drills he participated in outside that time frame. Five months of drills missed by the President in 1972 were never made up, contrary to assertions made by the White House.

Source: U.S.News & World Report

waynejm :

Obviously, the military brass who are supporting Hillary and Obama are pinko, cowardly, enemies of the Republic. How else could they become top military brass? Swearing and oath to defend the Constitution and pursuing a military career are the surest signs that a person is a coward and traitor.

True patriotism is abusing a system to secure what were safe National Guard or reserves spots (Bush, John Bolton, Steve Forbes) or obtaining multiple draft deferments whilst supporting a war (Dick Cheney, Dougie Feith, Paul Wolfowitz, Trent Lott, John Cornyn, Bill O'Reilly) . The truest sign of patriotism, however, is heading to the draft board with a letter from your personal physician claiming some easily treatable ailment (Rush Limbaugh and his phony football knee injury or was it a Pilonidal cyst) or  one attesting to some semi-bogus orthopedic problem (Rush again, and Saxby Chambliss, who first obtained a student deferment and then a medical one for his "bad knee").

Funny. Bill McBride, the Democrat who ran for governor against Jeb "My number didn't come up" Bush, sustained a game-related knee injury that caused him to give up (albeit voluntarily) his U of Florida football scholarship, served in the Marine Corps (How did McBride pass the physical?) and jumped qualified at Army Ranger school, again with a bum knee.

Wow! That's some system we had back then. Now everything has changed. Stop-loss orders are issued to prevent those multiple Iraq tour  nambie pambie "volunteers" from separating early.

Boxo, liked the Anthony Burgess reference.  Yo!

tec619 writes, "Channy, what do you call 4,000 dead Americans...?"

Tec, I call it one island battle in the Pacific during WW2.  A horrible toll.  As would be 1,000, 500, or 50 Americans.  

Korea, in just three years, cost us more than 54,000 lives.  

Iraq is dead in the center of all the bad guys.  And it was run by the worst of them, who in the wake of September 11th and the completely changed world created by that event, would have embarked on even more destabilizing mischief than he already had.

There couldn't be a spot in the M.E. more strategic than Iraq.  And you don't win a world war on the defensive.  

I'm pretty comfortable with any of the three remaining candidates, and don't frankly think any of them will do much differently from any other in Iraq. It's been a key to an area of vital national interests for decades, and will continue to be as long as petroleum is the lifeblood of the world economy, Iran is a major problem for us, the Persian Gulf is the world's most important trade route, Israel is a threatened ally,  Islamist terrorism remains a problem, and etc.

Anyone who still thinks we're just going to pull the plug on Iraq is deluded. Why, for example, do people think Obama has called for an increase of 90,000 in our combat infantry forces? I'm pretty sure it's not so he can invade Pakistan, Iran, or North Korea, as some apparently think we should be doing if we weren't "tied down" supporting Iraq's transition from an implacable enemy police state to a key ally.

Channy:

I knew you'd pull the "relative" card.  However, if  Americans were facing conscription, I doubt calculating their great odds of surviving while serving in Iraq would prove comforting. As it is, the army is an inch away from accepting cretins (though such a course has the benefit of reflecting the CINC and the rest of the civilian neocon, war mongering non-leadership) and serial killers. (Okay, I'm being hyperbolic, but let's face it, the ranks of the College Republicans hasn't been thinned by eagerly volunteering Bush supporters.)

Another point Channy: I think you are a "relatively" (smile) smart guy, so please don't embarrass yourself by spouting that "bad guy," 9/11 "completely changed the world," puerile propaganda bullshit.

I agree, Saddam was a bad guy, but is was he the only one in the world. Bush and the neocons were fixated on Iraq. Why? Our national security because Iraq is a major oil producer? The WMD that hasn't been discovered? (Despite two no-fly zones, a Kurdish carve-out and satellite surveillance, harrassing inspections yet it was believed that Iraq possessed nuclear warheads and an MIRVed MX arsenal.)

No ulterior motives? Dubya's hard-on for Saddam wasn't because he wanted to out his Oedipal demons.  What was that NSC principals meeting topic? Oh, yes. "Political-Military Plan for 'Post-Saddam' Iraq Crisis," dated January 31, 2001. Hmm. The Decider was in office for only 12 days and look who was at the top of the hit parade.

"And it was run by the worst of them, who in the wake of September 11th and the completely changed world created by that event, would have embarked on even more destabilizing mischief than he already had."

Not exactly.  His scientific-military complex was essentially in a shambles, and by fall 2002 he had the weapons inspectors all over his shop digging up the last cd-rom and flushing out the last engineer.  If Saddam hadn't reconstituted his nuclear program between 1992 and 2002, he certainly wasn't going to be able to after that.

Furthermore, we gave the potentially more serious threat, Iran, the gift of a lifetime by removing its prime opponent and threat in the Middle East.  The were toasting us with non-alcoholic bubbly in Teheran.

Ironyroad--granted Iraq's nukes were highly speculative at the time and likely to be for some time in the future, but given the sanctions' shambles already in evidence, a climb-down in 2003 would certainly have led to their complete collapse. The Total/Fina/Elf deal was already signed, one with Rosneft was imminent, and there's little doubt that the already active collaboration of France and Russia (and others) with the Iraqi regime would be augmented by  steadily increasing Chinese participation. Given the record of the "world community" on non-proliferation so far, I consider that Iraqi nukes were just a matter of time minus "regime change".

Moreover, the Duelfer Report makes clear not only the details of Iraq's plans for sanctions-busting, but the fact that it's deployment of chem-tipped missiles was "in the can", and Duelfer himself set the outside date as "within six months". That would have made Iraq virtually uninvadable, at least within any conceivably acceptable level of casualties. I'm pretty sure we wouldn't be better off with a newly-unleashed Ba'athist Iraq fueled by enormous oil revenues vying for dominance in the region producing most of the energy and most of the terrorism.

It's long past time that we sat down with Iran to negotiate about our several common interests. The idea of having a rampaging totalitarian police state which is our sworn enemy as our only hedge against the Iranians was a ridiculous idea in 1980, and it's only become more so with time.