Your closing comment reminds me of the obscure but wonderfully sardonic novel SOMETHING OF AN ACHIEVEMENT, by Gwyn Griffin (Holt, 1960). It's principal thesis was that its main character's ability to be a complete idiot was "something of an achievement."

Posted by: Redhand at June 5, 2007 04:16 AM | Permalink to this comment

Well, getting Noam Chomsky and Brent Scowcroft on the same page is something of an achievement, no?

See? GW Bush IS a "uniter, not a divider" after all!!

Posted by: Jay at June 5, 2007 05:50 AM | Permalink to this comment

Given the apparent universal accord, you'd think it wouldn't be so hard for the Democratic majority to come up with an exit strategy they think they can actually sell to a disenchanted public. So far, I haven't seen anything remotely resembling the kind of forward thinking process they excoriate the neocons for failing to undertake -- you know, the kind where officials address and/or debate the probable consequences which attach to the sundry "redeployment" options they've been floating. Of course, if our Congressional representatives are only prepared to cast symbolic votes, I can see how debating the merits of any particular timeline, let alone choosing one, might seem rather pointless, if not politically risky.

Personally, I think the idea of taking any real responsibility for the withdrawal they campaigned on scares Democrats silly. While they don't hesitate to claim that the consequences of deployment were as obvious as the current concensus you now cite above -- to everyone but the current Administration -- they see no irony in deferring to those same myopic folks when it comes to charting a new course, in preference to proffering even vaguely comprehensive alternatives of their own. They apparently believe (per Chuck Schumer, if I recall correctly) that if they can just cast enough nonbinding votes, the President will eventually come up with new plan which, in defiance of experience, they expect will be more to their liking, or something. Such scruples in the foreign policy arena have certainly not been much in evidence elsewhere, as Speaker Pelosi's unilateral international outreach attests.

OT to Anderson:

I was reminded of your snarky dismissal of "bullshit" distinctions between lawful and unlawful enemy combatants today. Human Rights Watch's Joanne Mariner makes virtually the same point that I did. Such distinctions do not, in fact, uniformly work to the advantage of Administration policy.

Posted by: JM Hanes at June 5, 2007 07:06 AM | Permalink to this comment

Given the apparent universal accord, you'd think it wouldn't be so hard for the Democratic majority to come up with an exit strategy they think they can actually sell to a disenchanted public.

This is backwards. Politicians aren't trying to sell the people on an exit. Last November the people tried to sell the politicians on it, and have sadly failed.

Posted by: David Tomlin at June 5, 2007 11:43 AM | Permalink to this comment

Tomlin is entirely correct. Take a look at the May 23 CBS/NY Times poll ( http://www.cbsnews.com/htdocs/pdf/CBSNews_poll_iraq_052407.pdf , pg. 8). Two-thirds of REPUBLICAN voters (and 3/4 of the total public) thought that "Congress should allow funding, but only on the condition that the U.S. sets benchmarks for progress and the Iraqi government are meeting those goals". Such mandatory benchmarks would have been the obvious fallback position for the Democratic leaders after Bush vetoed their mandatory timetable. Instead, they panicked (or apparently did; see below), and gave him absolutely everything he wanted. The result -- according to the ABC'Washington Post poll out yesterday -- is that the popularity of the Congressional Democrats has dropped by 10 points, entirely because their support among antiwar Democrats and Independents has plummeted. At this point, they could sell ANY pullout plan to that "disillusioned public", whether they're smart enough to realize the fact or not.

My own sinister suspicion (shared with Kevin Drum) is that they've deliberately made the cynical decision to keep Bush and the GOP twisting slowly, slowly in their own self-generated wind throughout 2008. Pull out now, and by Nov. 2008 SOME of the voters might be having second thoughts as they watched the full-blown Iraq civil war -- whereas if they let Bush keep our troops in through that time (as he himself wants), in Nov. 2008 the public will be ready to lynch every Republican they can get their hands on.

Posted by: Bruce Moomaw at June 5, 2007 02:31 PM | Permalink to this comment

And, you know, that Bush aide DID tell Ron Suskind that the Administration was about to "remake the nature of world reality". They certainly managed that, although not quite in the way they intended.

Posted by: Bruce Moomaw at June 5, 2007 02:35 PM | Permalink to this comment

"Well, getting Noam Chomsky and Brent Scowcroft on the same page is something of an achievement, no?"

Funniest thing I've read today, until whatshisface starts in yapping about birds and cages and then the other one starts talking about how raping babies might save us all one day and those of us who don't want to rape babies are heartless bastards for NOT raping babies to save America. Come to think of it, that would make an awesome t-shirt: Baby Rapers For America!

Posted by: LL at June 5, 2007 05:10 PM | Permalink to this comment

"They certainly managed that, although not quite in the way they intended."

Well, one would certainly *hope* they didn't intend that.

Some days I'm not so sure, especially considering the lunacy that comes out of the OVP.

Posted by: Jon H at June 5, 2007 08:30 PM | Permalink to this comment

Since the President can veto anything that has insufficient backing, my assumption is the Democrats are sledgehammering the Republicans with this. Both sides are angry: with each other, with the "base" and most of all with the President. The Democrats hold the power, but not enough to change, though they have the crucial control over the Congress. But the solution will now come only from the Republicans: how soon before they break ranks? I suspect the current farce we see of Republicans (such as Peggy Noonan) bemoaning Bush not being a "real conservative" or whatever, may be a start. It is deceptive (they certainly did not seem to feel this way last summer), but may give the Republicans in congress the cover they need to make the deal they _all_ know has to be made. It is ruthless and cynical on the part of _both_ parties; the country is being harmed (to say nothing of lives being destroyed). The situation is truly screwed up if we have to endure all of this just to choose the least bad of all the horrible options we now have before us.
and given the astonishing screwups of this administration, we may yet think of these as the "good times".

Posted by: qwerty42 at June 5, 2007 09:51 PM | Permalink to this comment

Bruce:

According to a lot of the same folks included in Mr. Djerejian's concensus above, Democrats are right to be very worried about the scale of the disaster that withdrawing now would precipitate.

Posted by: JM Hanes at June 7, 2007 03:40 AM | Permalink to this comment

So how, pray tell, do we prevent it? By withdrawing later, although (as Djerejian and many others point out) there is no strong evidence whatsoever that staying in will change anything? Particularly since al-Maliki's government depends centrally on the support of the country's Shiites, who are itching for revenge? Care to take bets on how long Iraq's "central government" will continue to display any interest whatsoever in what happens to Iraq's Sunnis after we've pulverized the Shiites' Sunni military opposition for them and then gone home?

A "disaster" across the entire region -- and, to some extent, across the entire world -- is absolutely inevitable no matter what we do, because we are now about to see the process in which Islam will finally reform and liberalize itself. That process will be every bit as violent and bloody -- if not more so -- than the wars in which European Christianity was liberalized. And the governments and non-governmental groups involved in the latter didn't have nuclear weapons. Our top priority, overwhelmingly, in the current situation is to try and keep nuclear weapons out of the hands of the religious nuts -- a process which by itself will keep our hands full, and in which the continuing entanglement of our military in Iraq serves absolutely no purpose.

Posted by: Bruce Moomaw at June 7, 2007 10:28 PM | Permalink to this comment

Footnote: In yesterday's NY Times op-ed ( http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/07/opinion/07shawcross.html ), William Shawcross and Peter Rodman (who, you'll remember were at sword's point a quarter-century ago over whether it was justifiiable for Nixon to drag Cambodia into the Vietnam War) agree that, yes, the consequences of an American failure in Iraq would be horrendous. What they don't bother to provide is any way to PREVENT it, other than to mumble (with no further elaboration, and without trying to provide any evidence whatsoever) that the Surge "ably directed by Gen. David Petraeus, offers the best prospect of reversing the direction of events — provided that we show staying power."

The "best prospect". What we should do if (as is overwhelmingly likely) the "best prospect " fails is apparently not their task to tell us. How long should we keep up the Surge before admitting that the Best Prospect has also failed? And what should we do then? Not a peep from S. and R. Nor do they utter a peep about restarting the draft, which would be the only move with any hope of providing enough US troops in Iraq to actually make a difference -- although it's almost certainly too late for even a massive draft to save that situation now. S. and R., like so many other continuing Iraq hawks, remind me of the captain's command in "Yellowbeard": "Proceed under sail as fast as we can without a sail!"

Posted by: Bruce Moomaw at June 7, 2007 10:49 PM | Permalink to this comment

"Given the apparent universal accord, you'd think it wouldn't be so hard for the Democratic majority to come up with an exit strategy they think they can actually sell to a disenchanted public."

qwerty42 gets closest to my read on this thing.

I real terms, the "apparent universal accord" doesn't exist. The Republicans in Congress are still fully behind Bush and will fight to protect anything he wants or does. Then there's Lieberman who has threatened to flip the Senate back to Republicans if Dems don't support the war the way he chooses.

The people have a large majority that want out. The Dems might agree but don't have the numbers to get there. The Republicans still believe that THEIR base wants to stay in Iraq (and/or support ANYTHING a Republican president wants).

We're not going anywhere until Republicans start jumping ship - or there is a new president.

Posted by: Mark-NC at June 10, 2007 02:37 PM | Permalink to this comment