Onetime hawk John Edwards ran away from his pro-war Iraq vote long ago. At the time of his vote, the politics were good for the then senator from North Carolina. Saddam would be deposed and his wmd uncovered. Edwards, like Kerry, could then claim credit for being a tough Democrat on national security but progressive on economic and social issues to gain favor with Democratic primary voters. Today, of course, his vote is an impediment to the nomination, so he’s now running as an anti-war candidate. CNBC’s Larry Kudlow summed up Edwards’ appearance on ABC’s This Week this morning this way:

[I]f John Edwards somehow managed to reverse this tide and win his party's nomination, he would lead his party to a crushing defeat in 2008.

For starters, he wants to cut and run from Iraq. Such an ill-conceived policy would leave this budding nation in shambles, with terrorists following us back to the United States. It would extinguish the candle of Iraq's democracy experiment -- an experiment that could still pay enormous dividends if the United States follows through with a bold, new troop surge strategy and a refurbished plan of economic reconstruction. These are the actions that will stabilize Baghdad and their democratically elected government, not cutting and running.

Will Hillary Clinton follow the "no surge" parade? Probably.

In case you missed it, Gen. Jack Keane and Fred Kagan wrote the following in Wednesday’s Washington Post:

Reports on the Bush administration's efforts to craft a new strategy in Iraq often use the term "surge" but rarely define it. Estimates of the number of troops to be added in Baghdad range from fewer than 10,000 to more than 30,000. Some "surges" would last a few months, others a few years.

We need to cut through the confusion. Bringing security to Baghdad -- the essential precondition for political compromise, national reconciliation and economic development -- is possible only with a surge of at least 30,000 combat troops lasting 18 months or so. Any other option is likely to fail.

They continued:

It is tempting to imagine that greater use of Iraqi forces could reduce the number of U.S. troops needed for this operation. The temptation must be resisted. We should of course work with the Iraqi government to get as many trained and reliable Iraqi troops as possible into Baghdad, and we should pair our soldiers and Marines with Iraqis as much as we can. But reducing the violence in the Sunni and mixed neighborhoods in Baghdad is the most critical military task the U.S. armed forces face anywhere in the world. We cannot allow that mission to fail simply because some Iraqi units don't show up, aren't at full strength or are less reliable than we had hoped.

The United States faces a dire situation in Iraq because of a history of half-measures. We have always sent "just enough" force to succeed if everything went according to plan. So far nothing has, and there's no reason to believe that it will. Sound military planning doesn't work this way. The only "surge" option that makes sense is both long and large.

Details of the Keane-Kagan “surge and stay” plan may found here.

I wanted to highlight two organizations that assist active duty service members and disabled veterans. Profiled in the Weekly Standard, Unmet Needs is a charity that helps military families facing financial difficulties.

In addition, I am on the board of the Wounded Warrior Project, a non-profit that assists severely wounded soldiers and their families with a variety of programs.

To all those who have served, America thanks you. Have a blessed holiday season.

John Kerry has an op-ed in today's Washington Post pushing for a deadline for troop withdrawal from Iraq. Fred Kagan, coauthor of this Iraq report, explains in today’s Sunday Times why the policy pushed by Kerry and others would lead to defeat. He writes:

A decisive moment in world history is at hand. If the United States, Britain and their allies fail in Iraq the result will almost certainly be a regional maelstrom. If the coalition succeeds, then the West will regain the initiative against radical Islam in Iran and throughout the Muslim world.

The current trajectory in Iraq is poor: rising sectarian violence threatens to rend Iraqi society and destroy America’s will to continue the struggle.

The choices are bleak: nobody has yet developed a convincing plan to resolve this conflict through diplomacy, politics or any other form of soft power. Hopes for success now rest on the coalition’s willingness to adopt a strategy of bringing security to the Iraqi population and confronting the sectarian violence directly as the prerequisite for subsequent political, economic and social development.

Embracing such a strategy would mark a dramatic change from the approach that the US military has pursued since April 2003. Since the beginning of the counter-insurgency effort US central command has focused on training Iraqi soldiers and police to establish and maintain security on their own. America’s own military efforts to establish security have been reactive, sporadic, under-resourced and ephemeral….

In the past, central command generated surges in security in parts of Iraq by drawing forces from elsewhere. This approach created opportunities for the insurgents in the denuded areas. It would be wiser instead to couple a surge in Baghdad with an increase of troops in the other key hotbed of the insurgency, Anbar province….

The increase in US troops cannot be short-term. Clearing and holding the critical areas of Baghdad will require all of 2007. Expanding the secured areas into Anbar, up the Diyala River valley, north to Mosul and beyond will take part of 2008….

Defeat will break the American army and marines more surely and more disastrously than extending combat tours. And the price of defeat for Iraq, the region and the world in any case is far too high to bear.

(Russian obstructionism at the UN has strengthened the hardliners in Tehran, argue the editors of the Washington Post today. So far, it’s win-win for Moscow and Tehran. Russia, a G-8 member, abets Iran’s nuclear program, rakes in lots of cash doing so, and yet remains on a path to gain membership in the World Trade Organization. Tehran defies the Security Council, moves forward with its nuclear program, and yet there are boisterous calls for “hardliners” in Washington to be more reasonable.)

Posted December 10, 2006:

That was the date the UN Security Council gave Iran to stop its nuclear enrichment activities or else. But it’s been nearly 4 months, and there’s little evidence the “or else” will amount to much anytime soon. And with the release of the Iraq Survey Group’s report, Tehran has dug in its nuclear heels even more. The ISG report cites Iran dozens of times, but you won’t find a single reference to the “August 31” deadline. Holding Iran accountable for thumbing its nose at the international community would get in the way of dialogue. Iran has learned that deadlines don’t have consequences and that, so far, it can have its nuclear cake and eat it too. From the AP:

Iran has begun installing 3,000 centrifuges in an expansion of its uranium enrichment program that brings the Islamic nation significantly closer to large-scale production of nuclear fuel, the president said Saturday.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad also claimed that the international community was caving in to Tehran's demands to continue its nuclear program.

"Resistance of the Iranian nation in the past year forced them to retreat tens of steps over the Iran's nuclear issue," the semi-official Fars agency quoted Ahmadinejad as saying. Fars is considered to be close to Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards.

Prior to any talks, a serious Security Council would come down hard on Iran (and Syria for that matter), though it’s hard to see that happening. So as it now stands, Ahmadinejad and Assad believe they are dealing with the world from a position of strength and they’re probably right.

Weekly Standard contributor Max Boot goes at it with British journalist Geoffrey Wheatcroft on the topic of U.S. foreign policy on the New York Times web site. You may find the lengthy discussion here. One thing Max Boot addresses is the rampant historical amnesia on who supported the invasion of Iraq. The support was broad and bipartisan.

Although you've [the moderator] asked me to reply to Geoffrey's claim that "the whole 'democratization project' is a fantasy," I'd like to begin by responding to the sentence in Geoffrey's posting that immediately follows: "Nor does it seem to have occurred to the zealots who dreamt up the war that, even were forcible democratization feasible, it might not actually be desirable in terms of the American national interest, and that genuinely democratic elections in Iraq -- or Iran or the Palestinian territories -- would be likely to have outcomes highly unpalatable to Washington."

Since you want a clash, I'll oblige by taking exception to Geoffrey's casual slur: to wit, that this war was "dreamt up" by "zealots." I know this has become part of the accepted mythology, but is this really a helpful way to characterize such disparate and distinguished supporters of the invasion as Fouad Ajami, Peter Beinart, Paul Berman, David Brooks, Eliot Cohen, Ivo Daalder, Les Gelb, Vaclav Havel, Christopher Hitchens, Michael Ignatieff, Martin Indyk, Robert Kagan, Zalmay Khalilzad, Bernard Lewis, Michael O'Hanlon, Ken Pollack, Dennis Ross, Natan Sharansky, Tom Friedman, George Will, Fareed Zakaria, and the editors of the Washington Post, Daily Telegraph, and Wall Street Journal? To say nothing of politicians like Hillary Clinton, Harry Reid, Dianne Feinstein, Chuck Schumer, John McCain, Joe Lieberman, Jose Maria Aznar, Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, David Cameron, Michael Howard, William Hague, and John Howard. Are they all "zealots"? What about the overwhelming majority of Americans who supported the war when it began? More zealots? Or were the zealots only those people within the U.S. government who supported the war: the likes of Dick Cheney, Don Rumsfeld, Colin Powell, Condi Rice, George Tenet, Steve Hadley, and Tommy Franks?

I can't speak for my fellow "zealots" but as someone who supported the invasion—and who, unlike some others, is still willing to admit it—I have always assumed that "genuine democratic elections" in Iraq or anywhere else might well produce outcomes that were "highly unpalatable to Washington." After all, I'm far from happy with many of the actions taken by freely elected governments in Paris, Berlin, Ankara—and, for that matter, Washington D.C. Why should Baghdad be any different? The point that Geoffrey elides is: Was the pre-2003 status quo in the Middle East a palatable one? Obviously not, since it was this status quo that produced the 9/11 hijackers and numerous other terrorists and tyrants. And despite the terrible time we've had in Iraq in the past four years, I am still convinced that in the long run greater liberalization and democratization will change the region for the better. And I'm not the only one. Let me quote an article from the current issue of Newsweek:

"For all his intellectual shortcomings, Bush recognized that the roots of Islamic terror lie in the dysfunctions of the Arab world. Over the last 40 years, as the rest of the globe progressed economically and politically, the Arabs moved backward. Decades of tyranny and stagnation—mostly under the auspices of secular, Westernized regimes like those in Egypt and Syria—have produced an opposition that is extreme, religiously oriented and, in some cases, violent. Its ideology is now global, and it has small bands of recruits from London to Jakarta. But at its heart it is an Arab phenomenon, born in the failures of that region. And it is likely only to be cured by a more open and liberal Arab culture that has made its peace with modernity. Look for example at two non-Arab countries, Malaysia and Turkey, whose people are conservative and religious Muslims. Both places are also reasonably successful economies, open societies and functioning democracies. As a result, they don't produce swarms of suicide bombers. Iraq after Saddam presented a unique opportunity to steer history on a new course."

Boot points out that the author of the above wasn’t a “neocon.” It was the “realist” Fareed Zakaria.

The failure to increase the size of the U.S. ground force post 9-11 was a mistake – one that the president is now correcting with his call for a larger Army and Marine Corps. Similarly, British Defense Secretary Des Browne says that they too “will have to consider increasing the size of the army.” Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, American and British force levels have shrunk considerably. Today, for example, British Army strength is about 96,000, down from 156,500 in 1990.

(courtesy of the BBC)

From an interview with CNBC's Larry Kudlow:

KUDLOW: General Haig, … Can we do this troop surge, and will a heavier footprint in Iraq work in your judgment?

HAIG (Former Secretary of State Under President Reagan): Well, I think the consequence of not having it has got to be considered. And, you know, I can understand people arguing both sides of this, because they have no confidence that either our country or our leadership seems unwilling to make the sacrifices that have to be made in order to prevail in this conflict. Don't tell me a nation of … 300 million people can't handle 25 million people and a bunch of bandits moving in from across borders, including Iran especially, and, of course, Syria as well. So, we just haven't done it right. We're going to have to pull up our socks. I do think a near-term infusion is the right thing to do. I think the secretary of defense will conclude that when he--when he adds that up against the calamity that our pullout prematurely, as recommended by the Baker Commission or study group, if that's what it is, I don't find it a very logical set of recommendations, although there are some good elements in it as well….

Well, first thing we have to recognize, Larry, this is not just Iraq and the Iraqi problem. It's a major war with none other than Iran. Iran is the centerpiece of all of this, and the way we've been acting is very pusillanimously, sometimes condemning them and sometimes sucking up to them, as the Baker Commission recommended. Now, all of these things are wrong-headed. We should be mobilizing a great number of new ground troops for both the Marines and the United States Army, and both leaders of both services have so recommended.

"A close aide to the British commander of NATO troops in Afghanistan has been accused of passing secrets about activities there to Iran,” reports AFP.

Thursday's reports come as British-led forces struggle against fiercer than expected Taliban insurgents in the south of the country, invaded by US-led forces following the September 11, 2001 terror attacks.

Corporal Daniel James, an interpreter to Lieutenant General David Richards, the head of NATO's more than 30,000-strong force in Afghanistan, has been charged under the Official Secrets Act with "prejudicing the safety of the state."

Specifically he is accused of passing information "calculated to be directly or indirectly useful to the enemy" by communicating with a "foreign power", believed to be Iran, said The Daily Telegraph and other newspapers….

The Telegraph reported that James, who lived in the southern English resort town of Brighton, was of Iranian descent and spoke fluent Pashtun, the main language in Afghanistan.

The specific charge against him alleges that on November 2, for a purpose prejudicial to the safety of the state, he "communicated to another person information calculated to be directly or indirectly useful to the enemy".

From the AP:

Defense Secretary Robert Gates and the rest of the Bush administration may be undecided on whether to send more troops to Iraq, but several soldiers he met with at Camp Victory here on Thursday morning here said extra forces would help.

"Sir I think we need to just keep doing what we're doing," Spc. Jason T. Green, with the 101st Military Intelligence Brigade Combat Team of the 1st Infantry Division, told Gates during a breakfast session with about 15 U.S. soldiers.

"I really think we need more troops here. With more presence on the ground, more troops might hold them off long enough to where we can get the Iraqi Army trained up."

… Gen. George Casey, the top U.S. commander in Iraq and one of several generals who met with Gates, said he supports boosting troop levels only when there is a specific purpose for their deployment.
"I'm not necessarily opposed to the idea, but what I want to see happen is when, if we do bring more American troops here, they help us progress to our strategic objectives," Casey told reporters during a news conference with Gates and military leaders.

Gen. Jack Keane, former acting chief of staff and vice chief of staff of the U.S. Army, and military strategist Frederick Kagan explain their plan to reverse the tide in Iraq here and here.

From the Hartford Courant:

"After speaking with our military commanders on the ground," he said Wednesday in an email, "I strongly believe that additional U.S. troops must be deployed to Baghdad."

Lieberman, D-Conn., visited Iraq last week with a Senate delegation. He also traveled to Kuwait and Israel….

Adding more American forces "will at least allow us to establish security throughout the Iraqi capital, train the Iraqi army, hold critical central neighborhoods there and clamp down on the insurgency," the senator said.

"We must provide vital breathing space for moderate Shiites and Sunnis who are now attempting to turn back the radicals in their communities," he added….

Lieberman got support from at least two of his trip companions, Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Lindsey O. Graham, R-S.C.

Lieberman said he understood the public's anxiety about the war. "The American people are justifiably frustrated about the lack of progress in the war, and the price paid by our heroic troops and their families has been heavy," he said.

"But what is needed now, especially in Washington, is not despair but decisive action, and immediately."

It certainly sounds like ground commanders told the senators during their talks in Baghdad that they could use more U.S. forces.

Does Bush have more running room with Americans on Iraq than the Washington media suggest in its news coverage? Recent polls hint he may if it’s part of a comprehensive new strategy to improve things on the ground in Iraq. The other day Gallup's Frank Newport discussed some interesting numbers with CNBC’s Larry Kudlow. A December 6-10, 2006 Gallup poll found that 76 percent of Republicans believe the U.S. will or can win in Iraq. It brokedown this way:

Republicans

US Win War -- 51%

Can Win But Won't -- 25%

Cannot Win -- 17%

Sure Republicans may believe Iraq isn’t a lost cause and is still “winnable,” but what about other Americans? Last month (November 17-19), a CNN poll asked 1,025 adults nationwide:

“Do you think the United States CAN win or CANNOT win the war in Iraq?"

Can win -- 54 percent

Cannot win – 43 percent

"Do you think the United States WILL win or WILL NOT win the war in Iraq?"

Will win -- 40 percent

Will not – 56 percent

There’s no doubt support for the Iraq War has plummeted, but these numbers suggest Americans haven’t totally given up on Iraq. The polling does, however, show that Americans are quite skeptical of the leadership in Washington to turn things around in Iraq -- and with good reason.

The International Herald Tribune reports on a bit of good news:

In the three and a half years since the fall of Saddam Hussein, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani has been the spiritual custodian of Shiite political dominance here, corralling Iraq's fractious Shiite political parties into a single alliance to rule the country after centuries of oppression

But the ayatollah has grown increasingly distressed as the Shiite-led government has proven incapable of taming the violence and improving public services, and he now appears to be backing away from his insistence that the Shiite bloc be the dominant political player here and hold together at all costs, Iraqi and Western officials say.

In recent days, he has given his tentative approval to a proposed American- backed coalition of powerful Shiite, Sunni Arab and Kurdish political parties, the officials say. If it succeeds in becoming the main political force in government, the coalition could dilute Shiite power and ultimately lead to the rupture of the ruling Shiite bloc.

The leaders of the multisectarian coalition say they are seeking to chart a moderate political course by isolating extremist parties and politicians, particularly the powerful Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr, whose loyalists comprise a major part of the Shiite bloc.

The aging and reclusive Sistani is considered the final arbiter of Shiite participation in the new coalition, and his willingness to approve it adds greater momentum to the Iraqi and U.S. efforts. So much so that leaders of the Iraqi parties trying to form the new coalition felt confident enough to announce their intentions at a televised news conference last weekend.

Still, there are many roadblocks to pulling this off. My guess is that any change in the goverment will also be accompanied by a change in military strategy in and around Baghdad. Reestablishing confidence in the government has to be a top priority.

"Pentagon Cites Success Of Anti-U.S. Forces in Iraq" reads a front-page headline in today’s Washington Post. “The Pentagon said yesterday that violence in Iraq soared this fall to its highest level on record,” the Post reports, “and acknowledged that anti-U.S. fighters have achieved a ‘strategic success’ by unleashing a spiral of sectarian killings by Sunni and Shiite death squads that threatens Iraq's political institutions.” The Post continued:

In its most pessimistic report yet on progress in Iraq, the Pentagon described a nation listing toward civil war, with violence at record highs of 959 attacks per week, declining public confidence in government and "little progress" toward political reconciliation.

"The violence has escalated at an unbelievably rapid pace," said Marine Lt. Gen. John F. Sattler, director of strategic plans and policy for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who briefed journalists on the report. "We have to get ahead of that violent cycle, break that continuous chain of sectarian violence. . . . That is the premier challenge facing us now."

The rapid spread of violence this year has thrown the government's future into jeopardy, Pentagon officials said….

Sattler implied that no number of U.S. or Iraqi troops would be great enough to quash the revenge killings. "I don't know how many forces you could push into a country, either U.S. or coalition or Iraqi forces, that could cover the entire country, where these death squads wouldn't find somebody," he said.

Indeed, the report documented that major U.S. and Iraqi military operations in the fall did not quell sectarian violence in Baghdad. Attacks dipped in August, but rebounded strongly in September after death squads adapted to the increased U.S. and Iraqi presence.

So, the present Pentagon strategy is failing. Violence is up, and confidence in the government is dropping. What to do? Former acting chief of staff and vice chief of staff of the U.S. Army, Gen. Jack Keane, explains his plan here – a surge and stay plan very different from the current Pentagon strategy, including the one employed in and around Baghdad.

The other day Sen. Harry Reid said he could support a short-term surge, which brought this response from fellow Democrat Sen. Jack Reed: ''Won't our adversaries simply adjust their tactics, wait us out and wait until we reduce again? So I think you'd have to ask very serious questions about the utility of this.'' Reed has a point, one that Keane also addressed in answering a question on whether a short-term troop surge would work:

No, it's impossible. It would take us a couple months just to get the forces in. What we have to do is clear the insurgents and the Shia death squads out of the area and then bring back the protection force. And then the protection force stays in the neighborhood, does not go back to the bases. And that takes time for the people to realize that this really is a secure situation. And bring the economic packages in and they begin to isolate the insurgents who are trying to sneak back in. Our problem in the past in Fallujah, in Samara, twice in Baghdad, has always been the same problem, we ran the insurgents out and we never put the protection force in to secure the people.

The "scary" theme of today's piece by Richard Cohen is an old one for the Washington Post columnist. Cohen, who supported the invasion of Iraq, penned many columns on the “militant mood” that ushered Reagan into power and the “scary” policies the president pursued with the Soviets, on nuclear weapons and SDI, and in Central America. Here’s a taste from a March 23, 1982 column, “The Bomb”:

In the car the other day, my son started to talk about nuclear war. He thinks it's a possibility, and since he is young and does not want to die young he considers nuclear war "unfair." It is his favorite word, but there is for the moment, none better….

Ronald Reagan and Alexander Haig and Caspar Weinberger, with their talk of limited nuclear war and firing nuclear warning shots, their tough rhetoric and their incessant military posturing, have given the whole country the willies. They seem to have doused hope, made you wonder why you thought in the first place that things were getting better -- that nuclear war could not happen….

All this has revived and exacerbated fears about Ronald Reagan that came out during the presidential campaign. Now, suddenly, little kids talk of nuclear war in their own way and lawyers in theirs. Mothers organize and the New England towns meet and the reason is that something has gone dreadfully wrong. Ronald Reagan set out to scare the Russians, but he's scared us instead.

Some things never change.

The governor made some good points on the report in this interview last week with National Review online:

The members of the Iraq Study Group deserve credit for their hard work. But their recommendations read like the product of a flawed process — one more focused on reaching consensus for the sake of reaching consensus. There were a few recommendations that I found especially striking: Suggesting that somehow the Israel-Palestine conflict is a root of sectarian and insurgent violence in Iraq is just wrong. Sunnis are killing Shia and vice versa. Pressuring Israel won’t change that.

Proposing that we negotiate with terrorist regimes like Syria and Iran — without a rigorous analysis of how our incentives could ever be aligned — is just counter-productive. I have no quarrel with talking, especially if it yields valuable intelligence and insight about an adversary. But that’s a far cry from actually negotiating with Iran, which sponsors Hezbollah, has nuclear ambitions, and has been clear in its intention to wipe our ally Israel off the map. And Syria is systematically undermining the sovereignty of Lebanon and funding and arming terrorists. Any suggestion that we might trade something for their help or forbearance is out of the question. When considering a negotiation, one must ask what kind of leverage we have, and recognize that there are situations where we have more to lose than gain by negotiating.

Finally, inferring that our troops may be withdrawn from combat positions before Iraq is secure runs counter to my view and to the views I have heard from some of America’s most accomplished military leaders. I am not suggesting that there are simple solutions for Iraq. But it is clear to me that some of these recommendations will not meet our objectives in Iraq, or in the broader long war America is fighting today.

Yesterday, on ABC's This Week, Gen. Jack Keane, former acting chief of staff and vice chief of staff of the U.S. Army, discussed "Choosing Victory: A Plan for Success" in Iraq. Video of the exchange Keane had with the newly elected Cong. Joe Sestak, a retired vice admiral who advocates troop withdrawals, may be found here.

Gen. Keane on…

How the plan would work:

“Well, first of all, security is the dominating issue in Iraq. I mean, it is the necessary precondition to have political and economic success and it subsumes all the other issues. Now what we're talking about here is the security plan being part of a comprehensive strategy that uses all the other elements of national power, political, economic and diplomatic, but we want to talk about military here, we will. In terms of the strategy itself, it's a fundamental change in the mission. The mission, people are focusing on the surge of the troops, but the essence of it is we changed the mission to the security of the people in Baghdad. We've never taken that on as a military mission before. Our mission has been transition to the Iraqi security forces and we made some inadequate attempts to secure Baghdad twice in the past.”

How the plan is different from past Baghdad operations:

“But when you look at what we did on the ground, we didn't do it that way. We cleared out the insurgents and the Shia death squads from the areas but never committed ourselves to phase two of the operation, which is significant, and that is to put a 24/7 force in the neighborhoods to protect the people and they do not go back to their bases at night. It is a security of the people that's the key to success….”

How many troops would be needed:

“It's about 25,000. And then in al-Anbar, the mission would not be the security of the people, it would be to keep the insurgents and the al Qaeda base off of Baghdad so they're not going to do a sideshow out there. And we would still focus on the enemy, not on the people. That would take an additional two Marine regiments out there, another 8,000 to 10,000.”

How long it would take:

“Baghdad would probably take, to complete the mission militarily, to secure the people, would take well into the fall of the year. And then we would turn to al-Anbar with a different mission. We'd change the mission in al-Anbar then, for no longer as a supporting mission, it would be the main effort. That's probably the place we really probably wanted to start a couple of years ago but were never able to do it. The enemy made Baghdad the center of gravity, so we have no choice, we have to deal with that. And that would take another six to seven months, and that would probably go into '08, as well.”

Why the plan would make a difference in Iraq:

“Listen, that argument we … [have] heard many times in this town is actually a choice to lose. Time is against us so our choice is, can we do something about this in the intervening year and make a difference and buy some time so that a political and diplomatic and economic strategy will work or do we just cut our losses as you say and walk away from it? … Of course it's going to make a difference if you go about it right. Most people don't realize what we didn't do militarily in the past. And what I was trying to explain to you, is this would be a security mission that we have never done. And you would go to the Shia neighborhoods and the Sunni mixed neighborhoods, there's 23 districts there, and you would secure those people, the Sunnis and the Shias. It gives Maliki then an opportunity to go to the Shia militias, to the Badacor, to Sadr and use that leverage that we are protecting the people here and get his people to stop their offensive operations and to turn defensive in Sadr City. And then we have a basis also, certainly we see the value of making this a regional issue. It has always been and getting other nations involved. The economic package to this is very important. It has two phases to it. The first one would be basic services while we're protecting the people. And then another economic package for enhanced quality of life services that would be tied to an incentive package in terms of their cooperation and their willingness to help us in turning over who the death squad members are and who the insurgents are.”

On the heels of Sen. Reid's support for a short-term surge in U.S. forces in Iraq, Sen. Clinton said this morning that she could support a surge if it’s tied to a different strategy.

I am not in favor of doing that unless it's part of a larger plan…. I am not in favor of sending more troops to continue what our men and women have been told to do with the government of Iraq pulling the rug out from under them when they actually go after some of the bad guys.

To her credit, Clinton could have easily said “no surge” under any circumstances. She may in the end oppose a troop increase. But, if some reports are accurate, she may have to explain her opposition in the face of a new military strategy in Iraq – a new strategy endorsed and implemented by generals never happy with the old strategy employed by Sec. Rumsfeld and others.

Democratic primary voters want out of Iraq soon. So in the next few weeks the presidential hopeful will again be walking a tightrope between primary politics and projecting a Thatcher-like image of resolve in time of crisis.

New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson told an audience in New Hampshire today that the “only realistic choice” we have in Iraq is to withdraw our troops. An American withdrawal won’t be “pretty,” he says, but fewer people will die if we “get out of the way.”

The only realistic choice we have is to stand down militarily and let the Iraqis stand up and face the political crisis which only they can resolve.

I’ve been to Iraq and Afghanistan. I worked in this region...we should harbor no illusions. This withdrawal will not be pretty. People will die. But fewer will die than if we stay. There are no guarantees that our departure will end the civil war, but it is sure to continue so long as we stay. The Iraqis might, or might not, resolve their political crisis. It is up to them. They distrust and fear one another, and this makes it very tough. But they share one goal – they don’t want to destroy their own country. To save it, they need to stop killing each other and start compromising. And we need to get out of the way.

Richardson didn’t directly say so, but he obviously believes America has lost the war in Iraq and we should get out sooner rather than later. He said nothing about what will happen to those Iraqis who helped us. He said nothing about the refugee flows that will likely occur. He said nothing about the intensified proxy war that could increase the chance of a broader war erupting. He said nothing about the consequences stemming from the enormous victory al Qaeda will claim. He said nothing about how our other enemies will react. He said nothing about the impact such a withdrawal would have on our military and American credibility.

A short time ago, Fred Kagan wrote in the pages of the Weekly Standard:

Advocates of withdrawal, either gradual or complete, rarely consider in any detail what that action would look like. It is worth painting a few mental images. First, U.S. troops would pull back to their forward operating bases, ending patrols in Iraq's towns and cities. In places like Ramadi, this would mean abandoning the city completely, since the coalition forces there cannot be secure without continual raids and other combat operations. American units in towns like Tal Afar, where a precarious peace still holds more than a year after the last major clear-and-hold operation, would also pull out, abandoning the Iraqis, who put their faith in us, to fend for themselves. Before long, the only American troops in Iraq outside of the FOBs would be the small teams embedded in Iraqi units. The enemy would then return and brutalize the decent Iraqis who pressed for reconciliation and peace, as has occurred following previous coalition withdrawals from cleared areas.

The pullback of U.S. forces to their bases will not reduce the sectarian conflict, which their presence did not generate. It will increase it. Death squads on both sides will become more active. Large-scale ethnic and sectarian cleansing will begin as each side attempts to establish homogeneous enclaves where there are now mixed communities. Atrocities will mount, as they always do in ethnic cleansing operations. Iraqis who have cooperated with the Americans will be targeted by radicals on both sides. Some of them will try to flee with the American units. American troops will watch helplessly as death squads execute women and children. Pictures of this will play constantly on Al Jazeera. Prominent "collaborators," with whom our soldiers and leaders worked, will be publicly executed. Crowds of refugees could overwhelm not merely Iraq's neighbors but also the FOBs themselves. Soldiers will have to hold off fearful, tearful, and dangerous mobs. Again, endless photographs and video footage of all this will play constantly. Before long, it will probably prove necessary to remove the embedded U.S. troops from the Iraqi military units. The situation will become too dangerous; the Iraqis will increasingly resent the restraint the embeds place on their actions; and the U.S. military will become fearful of being implicated in death-squad activity. It is a matter of chance whether the embedded troops are pulled before any are kidnapped or taken prisoner by Iraqi military units turning bad or being infiltrated by radicals.

What will be the effect of all this on American soldiers? The result could be worse than what we suffered in Vietnam. There will be no "decent interval" here during which we withdraw in reasonably good order--the withdrawal itself is likely to occur in the midst of rising violence. Instead of pictures of Americans on the embassy roof in Saigon, we will see images of Iraqi death squads at work with U.S. troops staying on their bases nearby. And let us not forget that in the world of Al Jazeera, we will be accused of encouraging those death squads. The overall result will be searing and scarring. The damage to the morale of the military could be far greater than what will result from burdening soldiers with longer or more frequent tours of duty in a stepped-up effort to achieve victory. Those who are concerned about the well-being of the Army should fear defeat of this type more than anything.

I admire many things about Gov. Richardson and hope he decides to join the presidential race. But if he believes we should withdraw quickly from Iraq, we should also be “realistic” about what that would look like.

(From today's New York Times: "Military planners and White House budget analysts have been asked to provide President Bush with options for increasing American forces in Iraq by 20,000 or more. The request indicates that the option of a major “surge” in troop strength is gaining ground as part of a White House strategy review, senior administration officials said Friday.”)

Posted on December 14, 2006:

Gen. Jack Keane, former acting chief of staff and vice chief of staff of the U.S. Army, former Afghanistan coalition commander Lt. Gen. David Barno, officers involved with the “successful operations of the Third Armored Cavalry Regiment in Tal Afar” under the command of Col. H.R. McMaster, and Frederick Kagan, resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and former associate professor of military history at the U.S. Military Academy, have produced a new Iraq study that “calls for a sustained surge of U.S. forces to secure and protect critical areas of Baghdad.”

“Choosing Victory: A Plan for Success” executive summary:

Victory is still an option in Iraq. America, a country of 300 million people with a GDP of $12 trillion, and more than one million soldiers and marines can regain control of Iraq, a state the size of California with a population of 25 million and a GDP under $100 billion.

Victory in Iraq is vital to America’s security. Defeat will lead to regional conflict, humanitarian catastrophe, and increased global terrorism.

Iraq has reached a critical point. The strategy of relying on a political process to eliminate the insurgency has failed. Rising sectarian violence threatens to break America’s will to fight. This violence will destroy the Iraqi government, armed forces, and people if it is not rapidly controlled.

Victory in Iraq is still possible at an acceptable level of effort. We must adopt a new approach to the war and implement it quickly and decisively.

Three courses of action have been proposed. All will fail.

On the other side of the Atlantic, a mini-scandal is brewing over the decision by British Attorney General Lord Goldsmith to call off a bribery inquiry that would likely have implicated the Saudi royal family. According to the BBC, the Serious Fraud Office was investigating allegations that executives at the British defense firm BAE had bribed Saudi officials in order "to secure an arms deal with Saudi Arabia in the 1980s." Lord Goldsmith assured the House of Lords that "no weight [had] been given to commercial interests or to the national economic interest," but the decision came just days after Saudi Arabia canceled talks over a $19 billion deal with the same firm for as many as 72 Eurofighter aircraft--and gave Tony Blair's government an ultimatum to end the long-running investigation.

It's interesting to note the different approach taken by Britain's political parties to the controversy. Lord Goodhart of the Liberal Democrats, which might best be compared to "the Democratic wing of the Democratic party," was critical of the decision and called Saudi Arabia's actions "blackmail." Lord Kingsland of the Conservative party, which was in power when the sale of fighters to the Saudis first started, was content with the decision, saying that "there the matter should rest." And Blair's decision can best be described as pragmatic--billions of dollars and thousands of jobs were at stake, and very little was to be gained from pursuing the matter.

Still, it hasn't been all bad news for BAE. In contrast to the struggling Eurofighter, it's been a banner week for a banner week for the Lockheed Martin-led Joint Strike Fighter program (see Michael Goldfarb's excellent piece on the JSF). BAE, the world's fourth largest defense firm, and now the Pentagon's seventh largest supplier, has a major stake in that program as well, with contracts "for the design, manufacture and assembly of the F-35 JSF aft fuselage and empennage (vertical and horizontal tails), and are also involved in other areas including the crew escape system, fuel system, life support system and proactive aircraft diagnostics system integration." So this scandal is unlikely to be the end of BAE. Lord Goldsmith, on the other hand, has a less certain future.

Garry Kasparov marches in Moscow. From the BBC:

The rally is being organised by former chess world champion Garry Kasparov, who has said its participants would try to avoid any possible provocations.

The march is against what protesters describe as rampant corruption and a Kremlin crackdown on democracy.

The Connecticut senator "spoke strongly in favor of a substantial troop increase, saying 'a failed state in Iraq will be a disaster for the region and the world,'" reports the NY Times news wire from Baghdad.

(Eli Lake of the NY Sun has an interesting piece today on how a surge of U.S. troops in Baghdad would play in the 2008 presidential race. McCain’s been calling for more forces in Iraq since 2003. Today, he supports a surge in Baghdad. The Wall Street Journal editorial page, the National Review, the Washington Times editorial page, and the Weekly Standard have all taken a position on the question of troop levels in Iraq. But what about Mayor Giuliani and Gov. Romney? Do they support a surge? What’s their position on troop levels?)

The Iraq War is the biggest challenge facing America. Most agree the stakes couldn’t be higher. Most agree that a totally collapsed Iraq will harm American security for years, perhaps decades, to come. We are at a crossroads. What should we do next in Iraq?

On the campaign trail and pre-campaign trail for some, we hear a lot of talk about leadership, the war on terror, and the need to be prepared for over-the-horizon threats. But on the substance of the Iraq War, many likely '08 candidates have little to say, beyond the usual bromides, on what they would do if they were president today. Do they believe success in Iraq is still possible and, if so, what concrete steps would they take to achieve that objective?

Also, the big issue of the day is the size of our military presence in Iraq. Do we have too many troops there, just enough, or do we need to surge more forces into Iraq? That’s a major question President Bush must decide as part of his strategic reassessment.

Shouldn't politicians who aspire to be commander in chief tell us where they stand on the troop strength issue now and not wait a few months to see how things are going in Iraq before taking a firm position?

The test of leadership is now.

Dodging the above questions would be nothing more than a cop-out, pure and simple. Reporters should start asking for answers to get everyone on record before the ’08 campaign really heats up.

Gen. Jack Keane, former acting chief of staff and vice chief of staff of the U.S. Army, former Afghanistan coalition commander Lt. Gen. David Barno, officers involved with the “successful operations of the Third Armored Cavalry Regiment in Tal Afar” under the command of Col. H.R. McMaster, and Frederick Kagan, resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and former associate professor of military history at the U.S. Military Academy, have produced a new Iraq study that “calls for a sustained surge of U.S. forces to secure and protect critical areas of Baghdad.”

“Choosing Victory: A Plan for Success” executive summary:

Victory is still an option in Iraq. America, a country of 300 million people with a GDP of $12 trillion, and more than one million soldiers and marines can regain control of Iraq, a state the size of California with a population of 25 million and a GDP under $100 billion.

Victory in Iraq is vital to America’s security. Defeat will lead to regional conflict, humanitarian catastrophe, and increased global terrorism.

Iraq has reached a critical point. The strategy of relying on a political process to eliminate the insurgency has failed. Rising sectarian violence threatens to break America’s will to fight. This violence will destroy the Iraqi government, armed forces, and people if it is not rapidly controlled.

Victory in Iraq is still possible at an acceptable level of effort. We must adopt a new approach to the war and implement it quickly and decisively.

Three courses of action have been proposed. All will fail.

* Withdraw immediately. This approach will lead to immediate defeat. The Iraqi Security Forces are entirely dependent upon American support to survive and function. If U.S. forces withdraw now, they will collapse and Iraq will descend into total civil war that will rapidly spread throughout the region.

* Engage Iraq’s neighbors. This approach will fail. The basic causes of violence and sources of manpower and resources for the warring sides come from within Iraq. Iraq’s neighbors are encouraging the violence, but they cannot stop it.

* Increase embedded trainers dramatically. This approach cannot succeed rapidly enough to prevent defeat. Removing U.S. forces from patrolling neighborhoods to embed them as trainers will lead to an immediate rise in violence. This rise in violence will destroy America’s remaining will to fight, and escalate the cycle of sectarian violence in Iraq beyond anything an Iraqi army could bring under control.

We must act now to restore security and stability to Baghdad. We and the enemy have identified it as the decisive point.

There is a way to do this.

(The Pentagon will establish a new Africa command within two months, reports Reuters.)

Posted on October 16, 2006:

Going back to the early 1990s, Africa has been a target for al Qaeda. Two letters, dated September 30, 1993 and May 24, 1994, captured during US military operations in Afghanistan related directly to al Qaeda “African Corps” operations in Somalia before and after the U.S. withdrawal in early 1994. Sudan provided a safe harbor for bin Laden before he fled to Afghanistan in 1996, and our embassies in Kenya and Tanzania were bombed in 1998. Since September 11, the Algerian terrorist group GSPC has formally aligned with al Qaeda. And in Somalia, a burgeoning Taliban has emerged that has engaged in an assassination campaign against moderate Muslim scholars, introduced suicide bombing as weapon against their enemies, and closed the doors on media outlets that don’t follow the fundamentalist line. At the same time, the US military has been engaged throughout the continent, so much so that some in the Pentagon believe a separate command for Africa should be created.

Reuters reports:

The U.S. military is sharpening its focus on counterterrorism in Africa, a top general says, as it faces challenges including a newly announced alliance between a regional militant group and al Qaeda.

General William ’Kip’ Ward also hinted it would make sense to establish a U.S. military command on African soil, instead of running operations on the continent from hundreds or even thousands of km away, as has been the case until now.

"I think ... having the unified command located in the area in which it has responsibility is the preferable solution set," Ward, number two at the U.S. European Command (EUCOM), told Reuters.

The Pentagon said in August it was considering creating a new military command for Africa. Responsibility for the continent is currently split between three separate U.S. centres, including Stuttgart-based EUCOM.

A single command, advocates argue, would help Washington focus better on its goal of denying sanctuary to militants who might otherwise find African havens in the same way that al Qaeda cultivated bases in Sudan and Afghanistan in the 1990s.

The stakes were underlined when al Qaeda announced last month, on the 5th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, that it was forging an alliance with one of the leading Islamist movements in the region: the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat, known by its French initials GSPC….

Ward, in an interview, declined to go into detail about the mode of operation of the GSPC and other militant groups.

"It’s a thinking enemy. They are constantly attempting to change their tactics," he said.

"As our (African) partners get better at intervening, interdicting, capturing, they are constantly adapting what they do as well."

From the AP:

In a direct affront to the Bush administration, a Democratic senator spent an hour Wednesday with Syrian President Bashar Assad in Damascus, emerging from the meeting to say Assad was willing to help control the Iraq-Syrian border….

"Assad clearly indicated the willingness to cooperate with the Americans and or the Iraqi army to be part of a solution" in Iraq, Nelson told reporters in a conference call following the meeting…. Nelson said he viewed Assad's remarks as "a crack in the door for discussions to continue. I approach this with realism not optimism."

Nelson said he reported the information to embassy officials and will brief his congressional committees on the trip. Also expected to visit Syria is Sens. John Kerry, D-Mass., Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., and Arlen Specter, R-Pa….

No word from Nelson on whether Damascus will stop resupplying Hezbollah with weapons and assassinating government officials in Beirut.

Hotline reports:

It's official... AP has called TX 23. Ex-Dem Rep. Ciro Rodriguez is coming back to Congress. With 94% of precincts reporting, Rodriguez leads GOP Rep. Henry Bonilla 55-45%….

Frankly, not only is Rodriguez's victory a mild surprise (Bonilla fell just 2 points short of avoiding the runoff in November), the size is a shock….

Bonilla was a strong supporter of the tough-on-immigration measures sponsored by the Republicans. He voted for the construction of the 700-mile border fence, and supported Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner’s bill penalizing workers who hire illegal immigrants.

Based on the election results, it appears Latino voters – even among his previous supporters – turned on him and supported ex-Rep. Ciro Rodriguez (D). In Maverick County (95% Hispanic), Bonilla won a miniscule 14% of the vote. By contrast, Bonilla carried the county in his comfortable 2004 win, and President Bush even performed respectably here in 2004 when he won 40%.

Val Verde County (76% Hispanic) has traditionally been a solidly pro-Bush, pro-Bonilla county. Bush carried it with 59% of the vote in 2004. But Bonilla barely carried it, only winning 51% there against Rodriguez….

Here’s what George Will had to say a few months back on the possible long-term political damage to the GOP:

So, safely assuming that the House-Senate conference fails to produce a compromise acceptable to both houses, when Congress returns to Washington after the Labor Day recess, the House may again pass essentially what it passed in December….

The cost of this, paid in the coin of lost support among Latinos, the nation's largest and fastest-growing minority, may be reckoned later, for years. Remember this: Out West, feelings of all sorts about immigration policy are particularly intense, and if John Kerry had won a total of 127,014 more votes in New Mexico, Nevada and Colorado, states with burgeoning Latino populations, he would have carried those states and won the election. But for now, the minds of Republican candidates are concentrated on a shorter time horizon -- the next 4 1/2 months.

Will also wrote:

[C]onservatives should favor reducing illegality by putting illegal immigrants on a path out of society's crevices and into citizenship by paying fines and back taxes and learning English…. [I]t would prevent the emergence of a sullen, simmering subculture of the permanently marginalized, akin to the Arab ghettos in France. The House-passed bill, making it a felony to be in the country illegally, would make 11 million people permanently ineligible for legal status. To what end?

I support tough border security, but the House GOP’s immigration stance was a mistake – on political and policy grounds – in my view. They would have had a lot of leverage going into conference with the Senate on immigration to get something done. I suspect they would have even won a phased comprehensive bill where border security would have come first followed by the phasing in of the other measures contained in the Senate bill. It was a missed opportunity.

The Washington Times columnist has an excellent piece in today’s paper. He writes:

[Bush’s] political opponents stand triumphant, yet barren of useful guidance. Many -- if not most -- of his fellow party men and women in Washington are rapidly joining his opponents in a desperate effort to save their political skins in 2008. Commentators who urged the president on in 2002-03, having fallen out of love with their ideas, are quick to quibble with and defame the president.

James Baker … has delivered a cynical document intended to build a political consensus for "honorable" surrender. Richard Haass (head of the Council on Foreign Relations) spoke approvingly of the Baker report on "Meet the Press," saying: "It's incredibly important... that the principle lesson [of our intervention Iraq] not be that the United States is unreliable or we lacked staying power... to me it is essentially important for the future of this country that Iraq be seen, if you will, as Iraq's failure, not as America's failure."

That such transparent sophism from the leader of the American foreign policy establishment is dignified with the title of realism, only further exemplifies the loneliness of the president in his quest for a workable solution to the current danger….

Or do you suppose they would have said, let's send in as many troops as we can assemble to hold on, while we raise more troops to finish the job. If the victory is that important -- and it is -- then failure must be unthinkable, even if it takes another five or 10 years.

Lincoln was alone in the self-same rooms now occupied by George W. Bush. All his cabinet and all his military advisers had counseled a path Lincoln thought would lead to disaster. He was only a month in office and judged by most of Washington -- including much of his cabinet -- to be a country bumpkin who was out of his league, an accidental president. Alone, and against all advice he made the right decision -- as he would do constantly until victory.

From the American Forces Press Service:

AL ASAD, Iraq – Even with all the debate in the U.S. over Iraq strategy, morale on the ground here is good, the commander of Multinational Force West said today.

Marine Maj. Gen. Richard Zilmer said that retention among Marines based in Iraq is more than 140 percent of the goal. "If they didn't think what they were doing was important, then they wouldn't reenlist," he said during an interview. He said the situation in Anbar province is difficult, but progress is being made. "It's going to be slow," Zilmer said. "We will be at this for a long time."

The general said he is encouraged by cooperation tribal sheikhs are providing the coalition in the province. Local leaders in and around Ramadi finally had enough of al Qaeda in Iraq violence and intimidation and began cooperating with the U.S. forces in the area. "The sheikhs have a lot of power," Zilmer said. "As soon as they put it out that people should cooperate, we started getting volunteers."

The Iraqi police in Anbar are fairly well-manned, but there are problems recruiting soldiers, Zilmer said. Part of that is because police remain local, while soldiers can get assigned anywhere in the country. Another problem is a requirement that Iraqi soldiers know how to read and write. Many men in Anbar province do not have those skills. "Al Qaeda doesn't have that same requirement," Zilmer said.

The help the sheikhs provide also means more tips coming in to the Iraqi authorities and more cooperation when forces go to neighborhoods, he said. It has also had an effect on the number of attacks in the city. "We hope this cooperation spreads beyond Ramadi," he said. "Success breeds success."

Another bright spot in Anbar is in and around Al Qaim, on the Syrian border. "Last year there were pitched battles in the city," he said. "Now the tribal leaders are cooperating, and the police and army units cooperate with each other and with us." The people of Al Qaim are giving the Iraqi government a chance to establish order, Zilmer said.

That's right. You don't need glasses. Gary Schmitt and Reuel Gerecht of the American Enterprise Institute argue:

Since the suburban riots last August, the perception that France is in decline has become de rigueur in French, European, and American circles. Economically, culturally, educationally, militarily, diplomatically, and even gastronomically, France seems to have significantly diminished. But French foreign policy--which has become noticeably less anti-American since the Iraq war and tougher toward Iran’s quest for nuclear weapons--suggests that France may already be recovering from its déclinisme. A more pro-American France--a surreal idea for many foreign-affairs practitioners in Washington--may not be that far off….

France may well already be on the cusp of a major, positive transformation, at least in foreign affairs. Although it has been little remarked in both the American and British presses, France under Jacques Chirac has apparently broken with French practice in its diplomacy toward the Islamic Republic of Iran. Understood in a French context, Paris’s Iran policy within the European Union’s (EU) efforts to halt the growth of Tehran’s nuclear-weapons and ballistic-missile programs has verged on the revolutionary, threatening to downgrade, if not discard, anti-Americanism, tiers-mondisme, and commercial self-interest as France’s guiding lights in the Middle East. If the French continue their hard-line policy toward clerical Iran--and again, it is important to note that France’s approach within the context of the EU-3 negotiations merits the description “hard-line”--it could quite conceivably convulse the way France conducts its foreign policy everywhere. France’s “pro-American” Iran policy is a potentially landmark turn.

Let's hope. Read more here.

On April 12, 1945, Generals Eisenhower, Bradley and Patton entered Ohrdruf, a subcamp in the Buchenwald concentration camp system.

(Eisenhower at Ohrdruf, courtesy of ushmm.org)

Eisenhower then cabled Gen. George C. Marshall:

The visual evidence and the verbal testimony of starvation, cruelty and bestiality were so overpowering as to leave me a bit sick…. I made the visit deliberately, in order to be in a position to give first-hand evidence of these things if ever, in the future, there develops a tendency to charge these allegations merely to “propaganda.”

A few days later, he sent another message to Marshall urging media coverage on the camps:

We continue to uncover German concentration camps for political prisoners in which conditions of indescribable horror prevail. I have visited one of these myself and I assure you that whatever has been printed on them to date has been understatement. If you could see any advantage in asking about a dozen leaders of Congress and a dozen prominent editors to make a short visit to this theater in a couple of C-54's, I will arrange to have them conducted to one of these places where the evidence of bestiality and cruelty is so overpowering as to leave no doubt in their minds about the normal practices of the Germans in these camps.

In 1948, Gen. Eisenhower became president of Columbia University. Nearly 60 years later, the same university, which banned ROTC from its campus 37 years ago, hosted an ambassador from a regime whose leader in Tehran has called the Holocaust “a myth.” Last month, this regime held an “art” exhibition in Tehran questioning the Holocaust, and yesterday it kicked-off an international Holocaust “conference” with David Duke among the speakers.

Because of Eisenhower’s foresight, the strongest antidote to the Ahmadinejads of today’s world who spin the Holocaust as “propaganda” -- even those who ply their trade at the same place the general once headed -- remains the photographs and film of the atrocities taken in 1945.

Stars and Stripes reports:

U.S. troops delivering aid to Kenyan flood victims

A team of American servicemembers assigned to Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa has begun delivering relief supplies to areas of Kenya hit by severe flooding, the military said Monday.

In all, the team of soldiers, sailors, Marines and airmen hopes to deliver about 150 metric tons of supplies through an airlift. Many of the roads around the flood-stricken area have proved impassable.

The U.S. military teams began the aid mission after a request from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees; many of those affected by the floods were living in refugee camps in areas of Kenya. Some 150,000 people have been affected by the flood.

Kofi Annan didn’t get around to any of this in his speech today trashing the U.S.

("Shell is being forced by the Russian government to hand over its controlling stake in the world's biggest liquefied gas project,” the Guardian reports, provoking fresh fears about the Kremlin's willingness to use the country's growing strength in natural resources as a political weapon.” The Times has more here.)

BusinessWeek has an interesting piece this week on the Russian economy and the growth of direct foreign investment in Russia since 2002. With high oil prices, the Russian economy has been humming along, but so has the Kremlin's appetite for gobbling up private companies.

The Kremlin has taken control of some two dozen Russian companies since 2004, including oil assets from Sibneft and Yukos, as well as banks, newspapers, and more. Despite his sporadic support for pro-market reforms, Putin has backed national champions such as energy concerns Gazprom and Rosneft. The private sector's share of output fell from 70% to 65% last year, while state-controlled companies now represent 38% of stock market capitalization, up from 22% a year ago. "The tendency that really worries us," says William Tompson, the oecd's senior Russia economist, "is the big increase in state property."

And the Kremlin hasn’t been shy about employing its property to advance political ends. Putin has used government-controlled energy companies, for example, to punish neighboring Ukraine and Georgia for not kowtowing to the Kremlin.

From NY1 News:

McCain Assails Iran's Nuclear Aspirations In Yeshiva Address

During his address, McCain called Iran "the chief state sponsor of international terrorism."

"There's only one thing worse that a military solution, and that, my friends, is a nuclear-armed Iran," McCain said. "The regime must understand that they cannot win a showdown with the world, and as Americans we also need to reassure the millions of Iranians who aspire to self determination that we support their longing for freedom and democracy."

That was the date the UN Security Council gave Iran to stop its nuclear enrichment activities or else. But it’s been nearly 4 months, and there’s little evidence the “or else” will amount to much anytime soon. And with the release of the Iraq Survey Group’s report, Tehran has dug in its nuclear heels even more. The ISG report cites Iran dozens of times, but you won’t find a single reference to the “August 31” deadline. Holding Iran accountable for thumbing its nose at the international community would get in the way of dialogue. Iran has learned that deadlines don’t have consequences and that, so far, it can have its nuclear cake and eat it too. From the AP:

Iran has begun installing 3,000 centrifuges in an expansion of its uranium enrichment program that brings the Islamic nation significantly closer to large-scale production of nuclear fuel, the president said Saturday.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad also claimed that the international community was caving in to Tehran's demands to continue its nuclear program.

"Resistance of the Iranian nation in the past year forced them to retreat tens of steps over the Iran's nuclear issue," the semi-official Fars agency quoted Ahmadinejad as saying. Fars is considered to be close to Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards.

Prior to any talks, a serious Security Council would come down hard on Iran (and Syria for that matter), though it’s hard to see that happening. So as it now stands, Ahmadinejad and Assad believe they are dealing with the world from a position of strength and they’re probably right.

From the current Weekly Standard:

"Among the many intelligent and forceful criticisms of the meretricious Baker-Hamilton report, THE SCRAPBOOK's favorites have been from soldiers, ranging from lieutenant colonels to sergeants….

First, listen to T.F. Boggs (check out his blog), a 24-year-old sergeant in the Army Reserves, back home from his second deployment to Iraq:

After watching the Iraq Study Group press conference today, I am a firm believer that all politicians are idiots. Okay well not all of them but they all have a problem understanding reality. . . .

The Iraq Study Group's findings or rather, recommendations are a joke and could have only come from a group of old people who have been stuck in Washington for too long. The brainpower of the ISG has come up with a new direction for our country and that includes negotiating with countries whose people chant 'Death to America' and whose leaders deny the Holocaust and call for Israel to be wiped from the face of the earth. Baker and Hamilton want us to get terrorist-supporting countries involved in fighting terrorism! If I am the only one who finds something wrong with that, then please let me know because right now I feel like I am the only person who feels this way.

Not only are the findings of the ISG a joke but the people who led the group (Baker and Hamilton) treat soldiers like they are a joke. One of the main recommendations of the ISG is to send more troops to Iraq in order to train Iraqis so they can secure their own country. But they don't feel that we are doing a good job of that right now because training Iraqis isn't an attractive job for soldiers to do because it isn't a 'career advancing' job. As someone who trained Iraqis from time to time I take personal offense to this remark. In my experience soldiers clamored for the chance to train Iraqis. . . .

I feel like all of my efforts (30 months of deployment time) and the efforts of all my brothers in arms are all for naught. I thought old people were supposed to be more patient than a 24-year-old, but apparently I have more patience for our victory to unfold in Iraq than 99.9 percent of Americans. Iraq isn't fast food--you can't have what you want and have it now. To completely change a country for the first time in its entire history takes time, and when I say time I don't mean four years.

Talking doesn't solve anything with a crazed people, bullets do, and we need to be given a chance to work our military magic. Like I told a reporter buddy of mine: War sucks but a world run by Islamofascists sucks more.

Then there were these thoughts emailed to a friend from an active-duty Marine lieutenant colonel now serving in Iraq:

From what I see here in Iraq, the rats are abandoning a sinking ship. Rummy has cut/run, and us slobs out here are on our own. Saw the Iraq Group's recommendations. Sure would hate to be one of these 'embedded' trainers in an Iraqi unit when the support of U.S. forces leave. Can you say POW???

These clowns, especially Hamilton, are clueless. Either we stay and fight, or we leave with everyone. We lose Marines everyday. It sucks. But we're kicking the sh-- out of the Muj when it comes to combat. They don't have a chance if they stand and fight. IED's are their only real hope. I see only a small slice of the war, but for my money, more troops is the answer.

It's a shame to think that after all the blood and effort here, we're going to walk away with our tails between our legs, just so that the Dems can say 'I told you so,' and get their man/woman in the White House in '08.

True, they don't offer 79 recommendations, but we'll stack the wisdom of these two up against any number of Washington eminences."

Sen. Lieberman on the passing of the Amb. Jeane Kirkpatrick:

America has lost a clarion voice for freedom. Ambassador Kirkpatrick was a genuine patriot who played a critical role in liberty’s triumph over totalitarianism in the Cold War. Ambassador Kirkpatrick profoundly understood that ideas have consequences, but she was not an armchair intellectual. She employed her great intellect in freedom’s struggle against tyranny. Once again, we are engaged in a battle with the forces of evil and totalitarianism and Jeane Kirkpatrick’s stalwart commitment to freedom should remain an inspiration to us. Jeane Kirkpatrick lived a life of a tribune of democracy. We mourn her passing.

Gen. Zinni, Gen. Keane, Sen. McCain and many others want to surge forces in the Baghdad area, preferably by increasing overall troop levels in Iraq, not by pulling forces out of Anbar. One reason may be reports like this this from the AP:

But as the White House faces calls to revisit its Iraq policy, U.S. forces in Ramadi insist their strategy here — taking ground and holding it — is proving effective.

"You have to occupy ground and stay there," said Capt. Greg Pavlichko, commander of a company involved in "Squeeze Play." "You have to live where you're fighting and let the people see you're committed to an area."

Commanders also say that any progress in Ramadi will evaporate almost overnight if U.S. forces pull out of the city. There is speculation the U.S. may scale back its operations here and throughout Anbar to focus on the violence and chaos in Baghdad.

"I think to give up on Anbar would be to give up on Iraq," Hart said. "It would be giving up all that we've worked very hard, sacrificed a lot of lives, to gain."

From today's Wall Street Journal:

Senior military officials are betting that larger U.S. military training teams that would live and work with Iraqi units could speed the development of an Iraqi army force that has shown some promise, but is still bedeviled by corruption, absenteeism and logistical problems. How quickly the Iraqi army improves could ultimately determine how quickly U.S. troops could withdraw from the country.

However, even the staunchest advocates of building up the Iraqi army warn that the strategy carries significant risks that could derail it. In the near term, commanders say, shifting more U.S. troops into training and advisory jobs could lead to an increase in sectarian violence in Baghdad, because there would be fewer U.S. troops patrolling the streets. Iraqi army units and their U.S. trainers would have to pick up the slack.

But how does a surge in violence advance the political process? If drawing the training teams from current US brigades on the ground “carries significant risks,” why do it? Why not take the advice of former Army Vice Chief of Staff Gen. Jack Keane and others? The bottom line: the commander in chief needs to act. Is there still a copy of “Supreme Command,” a book on the president’s summer reading list a few years back, somewhere in the West Wing?

From AFP:

MOSCOW - Russian prosecutors said they were opening their own murder inquiry into the death of Alexander Litvinenko as a funeral was held for the former Russian spy at a central London mosque.

A spate of new poisonings added further intrigue to the affair, including that of a private Russian security agent Dmitry Kovtun who met Litvinenko last month in London, according to Russian officials.

In its report, the ISG concludes:

The ability of the United States to shape outcomes is diminishing. Time is running out.

But as Frederick Kagan explains in today’s New York Daily News, the ISG’s plan is based on time “we don’t have.” He writes:

Yet the Baker Report devotes scant space (8 pages out of 56 in the proposals section) to the security problem and its recommendations are unoriginal: Increase the number of American soldiers embedded in Iraqi units as trainers by stripping them out of the combat brigades now working to fight insurgents….

But it will almost certainly lead us to disaster.

Here's why. It takes time to train military forces to be effective in counterinsurgency operations. It takes months to train American units--which, from the start, are stocked with experienced volunteer soldiers. In the violent situation in Iraq today, with the fledgling Iraqi forces, it takes more time. And right now, time is the one thing we don't have.

If we pull American units out of their combat missions and focus them on training, the security situation in Iraq in the short-term is very likely to deteriorate. There will be a gap between our abandonment of the security mission and the point at which the Iraqis can undertake it themselves. Will the Iraqi government survive such a collapse? Will the American people have still more patience?

The Baker report blithely accepts these dangers without even considering them.

The group also ignores another inconvenient fact. Some of the most important training Iraqi Army units get today comes from operating side-by-side with American combat units in clear-and-hold missions, searches and raids. It is one thing to have trainers tell you what to do and watch you do it. It is another to participate in well-planned and skillfully-executed operations.

Ironically, pulling American forces back from combat missions will actually remove one of the most important elements of training Iraqi forces.

A serious strategy to help the Iraqis establish security now would not only embed more American troops with Iraqi forces but increase the number of U.S. combat troops in Baghdad--and work with the Iraqis not just to clear insurgent areas, but to hold them once they've been cleared.

There was a lot of backslapping and talk of "consensus" yesterday when the ISG members held their press conference. But evidently some of the retired military officers who advised the panel disagree with the report’s primary security recommendation. The NYT’s Michael Gordon reports:

By the first quarter of 2008, subject to unexpected developments in the security situation on the ground, all combat brigades not necessary for force protection could be out of Iraq,” the study group says.

Jack Keane, the retired acting Army chief of staff who served on the group’s panel of military advisers, described that goal as entirely impractical. “Based on where we are now we can’t get there,” General Keane said in an interview, adding that the report’s conclusions say more about “the absence of political will in Washington than the harsh realities in Iraq.”

The group’s final military recommendations were not discussed with the retired officers who serve on the group’s Military Senior Adviser Panel before publication, several of those officers said.

Barry R. McCaffrey, a retired four-star general, said in an interview that the overall concept of withdrawing American forces as the Iraqis built up their military capability was sound. But he argued that the specific recommendations by the panel raised a second problem: if American combat brigades were withdrawn from Iraq, the thousands of American advisers who remained might find themselves dangerously exposed, particularly if the fighting in Iraq grew into a full-scale civil war. The advisers could be killed or taken hostage.

“They came up with a political thought but then got to tinkering with tactical ideas that in my view don’t make any sense,” General McCaffrey said. “This is a recipe for national humiliation.”

On page 1, the report states:

The Iraqi people have a democratically elected government that is broadly representative of Iraq’s population, yet the government is not adequately advancing national reconciliation, providing basic security, or delivering essential services. The level of violence is high and growing. There is great suffering, and the daily lives of many Iraqis show little or no improvement. Pessimism is pervasive.

So one question to consider is whether the ISG recommendation on military trainers would decrease or increase the level violence in the short term. On this point, a military analyst emails:

This business about increasing the number of embedded trainers (which the report explicitly suggests we do without increasing forces in Iraq in one sentence, even though it then tepidly endorses a brief surge in another), is extremely dangerous and seductive. The trainers will be advising Iraqis on combat missions. But 20,000 trainers means 4-5 brigades of our troops not conducting security operations on their own (out of 15 in country). That will be a big hit on security, since the Iraqi troops will not replace them on the streets quickly or with any degree of efficiency. This likely means a short-term surge in violence…. So I think that the report is in some respects more dangerous for being less bad than it might have been.

On page 37-38:

Because of the importance of Iraq, the potential for catastrophe, and the role and commitments of the United States in initiating events that have led to the current situation, we believe it would be wrong for the United States to abandon the country through a precipitate withdrawal of troops and support. A premature American departure from Iraq would almost certainly produce greater sectarian violence and further deterioration of conditions, leading to a number of the adverse consequences outlined above. The near-term results would be a significant power vacuum, greater human suffering, regional destabilization, and a threat to the global economy. Al Qaeda would depict our withdrawal as a historic victory.

It continues:

If we leave and Iraq descends into chaos, the long-range consequences could eventually require the United States to return.

(A reader emails: "on the military front, they looked at an increase of 100K to 200K and - surprise! - found that it would be hard to sustain. By inflating the numbers they took it off the board.)

From page 73:

Because of the importance of Iraq to our regional security goals and to our ongoing fight against al Qaeda, we considered proposals to make a substantial increase (100,000 to 200,000) in the number of U.S. troops in Iraq. We rejected this course because we do not believe that the needed levels are available for a sustained deployment. Further, adding more American troops could conceivably worsen those aspects of the security problem that are fed by the view that the U.S. presence is intended to be a long-term “occupation.”

We could, however, support a short-term redeployment or surge of American combat forces to stabilize Baghdad, or to speed up the training and equipping mission, if the U.S. commander in Iraq determines that such steps would be effective.

We also rejected the immediate withdrawal of our troops, because we believe that so much is at stake.

Of course, since 2003 we’ve been following the failed “light footprint” strategy and signaling withdrawal and the result has been a downward spiral and the rise of the militias. The ISG could support a “short-term” surge in Baghdad. I assume they’d support such a surge – which I predicted here -- because they believe it may improve security. What they don’t say is how long is “short-term” – 3 months, a year – and how many troops – 10,000, 20,000, 50,000? Perhaps the media will get around to asking them at some point.

Newsweek reports:

In a surprise twist in the debate over Iraq, Rep. Silvestre Reyes, the soon-to-be chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said he wants to see an increase of 20,000 to 30,000 U.S. troops as part of a stepped up effort to “dismantle the militias.”

Like Reyes, McCain also has called for an increase in U.S. troop strength. When asked how many additional troops he envisioned sending to Iraq, Reyes replied: “I would say 20,000 to 30,000, for the specific purpose of making sure those militias are dismantled, working in concert with the Iraqi military.”

When a reporter suggested that was not a position that was likely to be popular with many House Democrats, Reyes replied: „Well again, I differ in that I don‚t want Iraq to become the next Afghanistan. We could not allow Iraq to become a safe haven for Al Qaeda, for Hamas, for Hizbullah, or anybody else. We cannot allow Iran or Syria to have a free hand in there to further destabilize the Middle East.”

Is 20,000-30,000 enough and for how long? As Tom Donnelly of the Center for Strategic and International Studies notes, “a troop surge is necessary to stave off defeat; a larger surge is better than a small one; a long surge is better than a short one. It's hard to win a long war with a small force.”

Mort Zuckerman of US News asks, "What's the most dangerous geopolitical development in the 21st century?" The answer: "Iran's emergence as the Middle East regional superpower. Why? Because it places the center of the world's increasingly stretched energy resources more and more under the influence of an oil-rich, fundamentalist, pro-terrorist, anti-Semitic regime that has not only nuclear ambitions but the means to realize them."

And he's not optimistic about where all this is headed, given the obstruction of Russia and China on the Security Council.

All the West's diplomatic efforts have failed to induce Iran to refrain from developing nuclear weapons, which it contends–utterly unconvincingly–that it is not doing. Europe has been supportive, but Russia and China are playing both sides at the United Nations. Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, meanwhile, gleefully heaps scorn on the world body: "We are guided by what the Hidden Imam tells us, not by what you dictate in your resolutions."

Yesterday on Fox News, the president said he’d review the Baker-Hamilton recommendations on Iraq but he also added: “More importantly, when it comes to military matters, I want to listen to the military, to come up with a way of achieving our objective quicker. And so this is an important period." But with Rumsfeld, Abizaid and Casey on the way out, what will the military be saying to Bush on Iraq? Tuesday’s Wall Street Journal offered a hint:

As demands mount to pull U.S. troops out of Iraq, a growing number of senior military officials are arguing that the only way to salvage the situation is to add more U.S. forces and more U.S. money.

Outside the military, most of the debate is focused on a U.S. troop withdrawal. But inside the Pentagon, the recent dismissal of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has given some new life to arguments by military officers who say the U.S. must pour more troops and money into the country to expand the Iraqi army -- the one institution in Iraq that has shown some promise -- and stabilize the capital.

Right now there are about 140,000 U.S. troops in Iraq. Though there are no firm plans for an increase, some military officials said that as many as 30,000 more troops could be needed. Most of the U.S. troops would be focused on patrolling Baghdad and training the Iraqi Army….

Senior military officials seeking to make one last push to stabilize Baghdad might find a receptive ear with President Bush….

Most military officers, however, seem to believe that a pullback of U.S. forces would only trigger more violence and make political compromise in the country impossible. These officers argue that 20,000 U.S. troops are needed to bring order to Baghdad. Another 10,000 U.S. soldiers would also be needed to work as advisers with the Iraqi Army, which currently numbers about 134,000 troops and might need to double in size.

Military officials who advocate such an approach warn that it could take years and hundreds of billions of dollars. But many of these officers bristle at the idea that it is too hard or impossible.

"The notion that we can't provide protection for people in one of the capital cities of this world [Baghdad] is just rubbish," says retired Gen. Jack Keane [former Army vice chief of staff], who has made trips to Iraq to meet with commanders and provide recommendations to senior military officials. Gen. Keane, who advocates sending more U.S. forces into Baghdad neighborhoods and bolstering the Iraq Army, says he is speaking for himself….

Some have suggested that US forces should basically vacant Baghdad and focus on the Anbar province. Let the militias run wild in the capital. Somehow I doubt letting Iraq's captital slide into a full-scale, 1970s Beirut makes much overall military sense.

(It won't happen, but I'll say it again anyway.)

Posted on November 15, 2006:

If John Bolton decides to bow out of the UN post because of continued Democratic opposition to his confirmation, the president should seriously consider former Tennessee Senator Fred Thompson for the job. Like Bolton, he’s tough, well versed in national security, extremely articulate and would be a forceful public advocate for the president’s policies. Democrats would be hard pressed to deny him an up or down vote on the Senate floor. A Thompson pick would also send a bold signal that the president isn’t about to run-out-the-clock on his term. I’m hopeful the president could persuade Thompson to accept the nomination, but he will probably have to do so over the objections of a few, particularly in the intelligence community. With his background as a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee and chairman of the Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs, Thompson has routinely questioned the performance of our intelligence agencies over the years.

The bottom line: Bush shouldn’t answer the Bolton critics by appointing an anti-Bolton type, as some are clamoring for; he should up the ante and put the Democrats on the defensive. Nominate Thompson.

Two pieces worth a read: Jeff Jacoby's “Fighting to win in Iraq” and Mark Steyn’s “Iraq is just test of will for America.”

Syria keeps arming Hezbollah. From Reuters:

The United Nations has documented 13 incidents of illegal weapons in southern Lebanon since early September, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said on Friday, calling Beirut's border monitoring deficient.

U.N. Security Council resolutions have called on Lebanon to disarm all militias on its soil, including Hezbollah guerrillas, and banned all unauthorized arms in Lebanon….

The secretary-general said that he continued to receive reports of illegal arms smuggling across the Lebanese-Syrian border but has been unable to verify them.

Still, his envoy, Terje Roed-Larsen, said earlier this month he had evidence of the smuggling but was unable to reveal his sources. Syria dismissed the charge as untrue.

(Andrew Sullivan reacts to my Rumsfeld post. He writes: “The president refused. Where we are is not Rumsfeld's responsibility. It's Bush's. He's the president. It's been his non-strategy all along. And yet the WS did nothing but back him, lionize him and enable him.” Come again. From an April 26, 2004 WS editorial: “Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld famously talks about preparing for the ‘unknown unknowns.’ Yet the present crisis was hardly unforeseeable, and Rumsfeld did not ensure that the military was prepared to deal with it. He failed to put in place in Iraq a force big enough to handle the challenges at hand. That is a significant failure, and we do not yet know the price that will be paid for it. The question is whether Rumsfeld and his generals have learned from past mistakes. Or rather, perhaps, the question is whether George W. Bush has learned from Rumsfeld's past mistakes. After all, at the end of the day, it is up to the president to ensure that the success he demands in Iraq will in fact be accomplished. If his current secretary of defense cannot make the adjustments that are necessary, the president should find one who will.”)

The New York Times notes this from the Rumsfeld memo on what to do in Iraq:

The list of favored options notably does not mention the ‘clear, hold and build’ approach that the White House has touted as its strategy for waging counterinsurgency. That is a troop-intensive approach that calls for clearing contested areas with American and Iraqi troops, holding them with American and Iraqi forces and then carrying out reconstruction programs to win popular support.

But the “clear, hold and build” approach is not an “option.” It's the president’s stated war strategy, and the defense secretary never implemented it. Secretary Rice outlined the strategy in Senate testimony in October 2005, and around the same time the White House chief of staff had to remind the secretary about the president's “clear, hold and build” counterinsurgency strategy. George Will noted this nugget from Bob Woodward’s State of Denial:

The book actually includes one heartening story that should enhance Rumsfeld's reputation. On Veterans Day, 2005, the president traveled to a Pennsylvania Army depot to deliver a speech announcing the new military policy for Iraq, the policy of "clear, hold and build.'' Woodward says Rumsfeld, having read the speech, called Andy Card, the White House chief of staff, a half-hour before Bush was to deliver it, and said, "Take that out.'' Card replied that the three words were the centerpiece of the speech, not to mention the war strategy. Rumsfeld replied, "Clear, we're doing. It's up to the Iraqis to hold. And the State Department's got to work with somebody on the build.''

So the commander in chief announces a new war strategy and his defense secretary stonewalls it. If Rumsfeld didn’t agree with the “clear, hold and build” strategy, fine. He should have stepped aside and handed over the keys to the Pentagon to someone who supported the new strategy. Instead, the new strategy was pursued with insufficient forces, a critical problem going back to 2003 (see here, here, here, here, here, here and here.)

For years, Rumsfeld pursued his own agenda in Iraq. He denied things were getting worse. He ignored calls for more troops and dismissed those critical of his conduct of the war. Rumsfeld now suggests that the US “go minimalist” in Iraq. Unfortunately for the president, his defense secretary has followed a “minimalist” approach in Iraq since March 2003. And here we are.

From the New York Times:

Senator John Cornyn, a Republican member of the Armed Services Committee from Texas, said he believed that it would be necessary to send tens of thousands more troops to Iraq in the short term to stabilize Baghdad and control the sectarian militias that were killing one another and Americans.

He said he was gratified to hear Mr. Maliki’s claim that his forces would be adequate to the task by the middle of next year, but said he did not think the Iraqi prime minister was being realistic.

“I would love to believe it,” Mr. Cornyn said in a telephone interview from Texas. “Perhaps it’s useful for him to set goals for his own security forces. But it’s pretty clear to me that, at least from a logistical standpoint, Iraqi troops will need to receive support from the United States for quite a long time.”

From the Christian Science Monitor:

Many Republicans are shifting into defensive mode as they give up control of oversight committees. GOP Rep. Zach Wamp of Tennessee and Sen. Johnny Isakson (R) of Georgia said this week that they are backing Sen. John McCain's plan to boost troop levels by as much as 20,000 in Iraq.

Democrats ran under the "Bring the Troops Home" banner, but they now expect Republicans to concede defeat along with them. According to today’s Christian Science Monitor,

After winning back control of the House and Senate largely on the basis of opposition to the war in Iraq, Democrats are ramping up to find a bipartisan way out of it.

So far, the leading exit strategies on Capitol Hill - more troops, fewer troops, partition of Iraq, and timetables for phased or immediate withdrawal - are tied to individual sponsors. Disagreements cross party lines.

But leading Democrats now say that any exit strategy must be bipartisan. While eager to respect commitments to voters, Democrats don't want to own a war that many believe is already beyond winning - or to be tagged with the consequences of a botched exit.

Secretary Baker’s “bipartisan” plan is going nowhere fast, so Democrats will have to accomplish their objective the old fashioned way – seek to legislatively cut off funding for combat operations in Iraq and force a ”redeployment” of U.S. forces. I’m sure John Kerry is ready to take the lead in the Senate.