Operation Phantom Thunder, the first real effect of the Iraq troop surge of the past six months, is improving the battlefield situation in Baghdad and the surrounding towns. But in Washington, those who believe the war is already lost--call it the Clinton-Lugar axis--are mounting a surge of their own. Ground won in Iraq becomes ground lost at home.

The most notable defeat last week in Washington was the speech given by Richard Lugar, the senior statesman and senator from Indiana and voice of moderate Republicanism. On Monday, Lugar announced that he had concluded that the surge was irrelevant: "The prospects that the current surge strategy will succeed . . . are very limited within the period framed by our own domestic political debate." And while President Bush may want to hang tough, "the resulting contentiousness with Congress would make cooperation on national security issues nearly impossible." That is, Bush's commitment to victory is disrupting Lugar's desire to restore bipartisanship.

Lugar allowed that the surge might well improve things in Iraq. Indeed he allowed that they already have: "I do not doubt the assessments of military commanders that there has been progress in security." But he doesn't even want to hear General David Petraeus's report in September. "Persisting indefinitely with the surge strategy will delay policy adjustments that have a better chance of protecting our vital interests over the long term." Lugar's interests include "more regular contact with Syria and Iran with less drama and rhetoric" and addressing "the two elephants in the room,"

It also sounds like a speech given by Senator Hillary Clinton last week at the coming-out party for a new Washington think tank, the Center for a New American Security (CNAS). This group--if the rather awkward name summons echoes of the Project for a New American Century, well, it's supposed to--has brought together a powerful collection of veterans of the Clinton administration. Without doubt, CNAS will provide the intellectual muscle behind the 2008 Clinton campaign. And it is these New Clintonistas who are also breathing new life into the otherwise moribund ISG recommendations.

Indeed, coincident with its "inaugural" conference at the Willard Hotel, CNAS released an extended Iraq report--"Phased Transition: A Responsible Way Forward and Out of Iraq"--that might as well have served as the script for both Lugar and Clinton. But if its authors, James Miller and Shawn Brimley, are fresh figures, their ideas are pretty stale. To begin with, the report styles itself as "build[ing] explicitly on ISG recommendations." CNAS wants to put more effort into the so-called New Diplomatic Initiative and other attempts to turn the problem of Iraq over to others in the region, including Iran and Syria--which of course are a big part of the problem.

If the overall policy approach is recycled Baker-Hamilton, the military strategy is recycled Rumsfeld-Casey. Indeed, an agonizingly "phased" transition, beginning immediately but continuing until December 2012--a cynic would say just in time for President Clinton to get out of Iraq entirely before her reelection campaign--constitutes the core of the CNAS report. Of course, the surge stops now; even though the report concedes "it is too soon to declare the 'surge' a success or failure" and admits the prospect of a post-withdrawal "genocide," it's not too soon to give up. After all, the continued erosion of domestic political will is "inevitable."