Greg,

There's a whole lot of people out there who will eagerly wait to see what you do sketch out, because it's going to have to be something of the equivalent of the cartoons for the Sistine Chapel. In other words, it'll have to be something no-one else could imagine - and that right now, no-one either has the political will, guts or balls to imagine.

You've also said as well that you want to demur on the ISG for the time being. The word on the wire is that they've got something other than 'stay the course' or 'cut and run' in the works. I can't possibly see what it would recommend beyond a gradual withdrawl. Yet who on earth could see any option besides just leaving now? (I know, I know there'll be a whole bunch of people who'll beg to differ - I'm counting on it). Just think - as horrifying as what you've sketched out in the installment above, can we truly ask U.S/U.K. troops to let themselves get sucked into the same - which is certainly what will happen even by way of a gradual withdrawl? What sort of halflife would this policy enjoy as a viable alternative, one that would outlast 'stay the course', when the possibility that what is now happening to Iraqis at the hands of the militias will happen to the troops? The longer we are there, whether to stay or to gradually usher our way out, the more certain that we will be consigning the troops to the same treatment/fate. Apparently, we've been able to live with 2700-odd GI and god-knows how many hundreds-of-thousands of Iraqi deaths up to now. (We seem to tolerate clean, surgical deaths via roadside bombs, good-ole-fashined bullets, grenades and rockets, and what-not). But wait till bodies of soldiers and Marines turn up with drill holes and signs of torture - does anyone expect a gradual withdrawl to be enough?

It gives me no pleasure to outline that scenario which, for those who find it shrill and even silly, isn't any less so than the WMD histrionics, the yellowcake imbroglio, or any of the other falsified/fabricated intel in the run-up to the war - but is a whole helluva lot more plausible.

For those who find leaving now distasteful, what is the only truly morally indefensible aspect of doing so is the fact that we would be abandoning a situation we created. Whether we stay or whether we go, we are damned and cursed anyway, and trying to pull something more honorable out of staying is semantic atom-splitting.

For those still under the delusion that we are winning, and that we must win, what you must ask yourselves - given the insurgency, the sectarianism, and the utter lack of control we have over what now is an Iraqi reality - is what exactly are we winning but more corpses?

Posted by: sekaijin at October 16, 2006 02:02 PM | Permalink to this comment

Sekaijin: your snark (Sistine Chapel etc.) is totally merited, and i hear you. of course i'm not presuming to offer up some grand panacea in this space that no one else has thought up. i'd be delusional and certifiable if i believed i could. and yes, the situation is dire and ugly, blisteringly so. still, i think on the diplomatic side there is perhaps room for a 'big bang' Dayton style approach here, drawing on some lessons from Bosnia (despite that the parties are not as exhausted by the fighting yet...), which I hope might produce an idea or two that, all things considered, might not be unhelpful given the very difficult straits we're in.

Posted by: greg djerejian at October 16, 2006 02:52 PM | Permalink to this comment

Greg - in spite of the tenor of my post, the snarkiness was not directed at you - and my apologies if you construed it as such. But since you've brought up the notion of a Dayton-style accord as a way out of this catastrophe, let me throw a few more chips in the pot vis-a-vis Dayton. (BTW, I do - as I know others would too - want to see what you bring up in your analysis)

The strength of the Dayton deal was the moral levity it seemed to give the U.S. in brokering the aftermath of what was seen, at its height, as equally a hopeless, and as catastrophic, a situation - with such levity brought forward all the more because it was done over a place we had no strategic interest in at all. And as miraculous as it seemed at the time (and still seems), and as nothing less than a Dayton is warranted, I think it's going to be much harder to realize with Iraq. Moral levity is much better, and easier to see, when you're brokering it rather than being on the receiving end of it - that is, when you're at the core of the situation that such levity adjudicates. For in addition to the much more severe degree of antagonism amongst the warring factions you've adduced, part of what is going to make a Dayton more difficult to make happen is our complicity in this disaster. We have no levity to bring about because we're at the center of it. Yet the force of any deal involving Iraq must have that moral core at its heart, because anything less is just, in the end, more self-interest at play.

This may seem like wishful thinking (I'm interested in what you or anyone else who regularly posts will think of this), but what is needed is a consortium of nations with no ulterior motive in this to 'do' the Dayton - as wild as this sounds, a conglomeration involving countries such as, say, India and Brazil, and even China, and perhaps Indonesia and South Africa in there for good measure. Of course, it's not going to happen because the Bush administration isn't going to let it happen. But it might behoove the Dems, if they really want to get outfitted with some real foreign-policy cojones, to start secretly sounding out countries such as these - entirely clandestinely, of course - and essentially build what would amount to a shadow foreign policy that might not seem to give us any tactical honor, but would claim the moral high ground the GOP surrendered long ago, and would do more to rescue our standing in the long term beyond what that pallid and lifeless ghost named 'stay the course' would offer.

Naturally, many will find this distateful, but it might just make sense. If in fact it was true that the Reagan team essentially did the same thing with the Iranians in the run-up to the '80 election - allowing them to keep the hostages until Jimmy Carter was decisively defeated and a Reagan administration assured - for the Dems to really do the same thing for a far worthier cause would not be unprecedented, and doable. That, of course, is predicated on the notion that anyone in the DP has the balls, and wherewithall, to actually reach for it.

Posted by: sekaijin at October 16, 2006 05:20 PM | Permalink to this comment

Greg - in spite of the tenor of my post, the snarkiness was not directed at you - and my apologies if you construed it as such. But since you've brought up the notion of a Dayton-style accord as a way out of this catastrophe, let me throw a few more chips in the pot vis-a-vis Dayton. (BTW, I do - as I know others would too - want to see what you bring up in your analysis)

The strength of the Dayton deal was the moral levity it seemed to give the U.S. in brokering the aftermath of what was seen, at its height, as equally a hopeless, and as catastrophic, a situation - with such levity brought forward all the more because it was done over a place we had no strategic interest in at all. And as miraculous as it seemed at the time (and still seems), and as nothing less than a Dayton is warranted, I think it's going to be much harder to realize with Iraq. Moral levity is much better, and easier to see, when you're brokering it rather than being on the receiving end of it - that is, when you're at the core of the situation that such levity adjudicates. For in addition to the much more severe degree of antagonism amongst the warring factions you've adduced, part of what is going to make a Dayton more difficult to make happen is our complicity in this disaster. We have no levity to bring about because we're at the center of it. Yet the force of any deal involving Iraq must have that moral core at its heart, because anything less is just, in the end, more self-interest at play.

This may seem like wishful thinking (I'm interested in what you or anyone else who regularly posts will think of this), but what is needed is a consortium of nations with no ulterior motive in this to 'do' the Dayton - as wild as this sounds, a conglomeration involving countries such as, say, India and Brazil, and even China, and perhaps Indonesia and South Africa in there for good measure. Of course, it's not going to happen because the Bush administration isn't going to let it happen. But it might behoove the Dems, if they really want to get outfitted with some real foreign-policy cojones, to start secretly sounding out countries such as these - entirely clandestinely, of course - and essentially build what would amount to a shadow foreign policy that might not seem to give us any tactical honor, but would claim the moral high ground the GOP surrendered long ago, and would do more to rescue our standing in the long term beyond what that pallid and lifeless ghost named 'stay the course' would offer.

Naturally, many will find this distateful, but it might just make sense. If in fact it was true that the Reagan team essentially did the same thing with the Iranians in the run-up to the '80 election - allowing them to keep the hostages until Jimmy Carter was decisively defeated and a Reagan administration assured - for the Dems to really do the same thing for a far worthier cause would not be unprecedented, and doable. That, of course, is predicated on the notion that anyone in the DP has the balls, and wherewithall, to actually reach for it.

Posted by: sekaijin at October 16, 2006 05:21 PM | Permalink to this comment

In all honesty, by the time you write your methods for avoiding this conflagration (and of course by the time the wise ISG issues their "important" report) that conflagration may have already happened.

There has been a constant symptom of underestimating what is at play in Iraq. The Stand up/Stand down plan was clearly too simple. The invasion plan was clearly too simple. Now, what complicated piece of policy will be presented? What you will say and what the ISG will say will sound like something Wesley Clark wrote in 2005. Even his ideas were a little stale.

Consider this: your plan should address what is possible in 2007. Let's consider implementation and effects in our subsequent planning. Otherwise, we're as dense as the leadership that's placed us in this mess.

Posted by: Chris at October 16, 2006 05:54 PM | Permalink to this comment

The ISG is entirely pointless unless Bush & Co. actually start taking advice that isn't theirs. I'd punt on the ISG and just go with what you might sketch out....

Posted by: ralph at October 16, 2006 07:14 PM | Permalink to this comment

The problem with a Dayton-esque settlement is that AQI will not sign on to such a statement and it is damned unlikely that the Mahdi Army will either. With the result that any kind of peace could simply be torpedoed with the first sectarian attack.

Posted by: Andrew R. at October 16, 2006 09:43 PM | Permalink to this comment