Senators Surgie and Surgier Speak

The spectacle of Joe Lieberman and John McCain doing their "Victory To Win!" forum at the American Enterprise Institute was quite disturbing. CorrenteWire has a full roundup here, and PoliticsTV took video of the MoveOn protest happening on the street below. But you really have to read the transcript to get a sense of the disingenuousness of their remarks. For instance, John McCain is now against the surge before he was for it.

There are two keys to any surge of U.S. troops. To be of value the surge must be substantial and it must be sustained -- it must be substantial and it must be sustained.

We will need a large number of troops. During our recent trip commanders on the ground spoke of a surge of three to five additional brigades in Baghdad and at least an additional brigade in Anbar province.

I believe these numbers are the minimum that's required -- a minimum [...]

The deployment also needs to be sustained. The presence of additional brigades should be tied to completion of their mission rather than to some arbitrary deadline.

The worst of all worlds would be a small, short surge of U.S. forces. We tried small surges in the past and they've been ineffective because our commanders lacked the forces necessary to hold territory after it was cleared. Violence which fell dramatically while U.S. forces were present spiked as soon as they were gone.

McCain's simply looking for some rhetorical high ground here. He has called for 20,000 additional troops in the recent past - which appears to be the exact number that Bush will call for in his escalation speech. By demanding that the surge is substantial and sustained - making it not a surge, but an escalation, by definition - McCain can continue to say that "if only they listened to me, we would have won the war." This is completely disingenuous. There aren't the troops for what McCain is proposing, and the Iraqi Prime Minister is moving forward with his own plan for security in Baghdad, absent US input. McCain knows this, but wants to be able to keep the position of the sage who knows what's best.

Then there's this bit of gobbledygook from Sen. Lieberman:

There are people who have spoken of this moment in our history as if it was the '30s. And there's some parallels, I fear, there. Some people say the war in Iraq is comparable to the Spanish Civil War; the war in Iraq to the larger war on Islamist terrorism, comparable to the Spanish Civil War to the Second World War; to the late '30s and the failure to grasp the growing threat of fascism in Europe until it was almost too late.

The painful irony of this moment in our history is that while, in some senses, it is comparable to the 1930s, it's also already 1942, because Pearl Harbor in this war has already happened on 9/11/01 and in the progeny of horrific terrorist attacks that have occurred throughout the world.

I think my analogy-meter just busted. Are we at war with fascist Spain or Tojo or Mussolini or who, now?

(Parenthetically, would it kill the LA Times not to list Lieberman a Democrat? He lost the Democratic nomination. He's an independent and should be noted as such. There is no bipartisan support for escalating this war. Period.)

These two lunatics, who continue to think that the military can solve all known problems in the world, don't want to admit their initial mistake of supporting the war (and considering that war to be simple to execute), so they'll let more Americans die for their vanity. They never address the fact that a political accomodation is the only solution to the problems in Iraq, yet the main players in the government don't want it. Maliki will not go after the militias. The Sunnis and the Shia are in civil war and will not merge to form a unity government by magic. Sistani won't throw the militias under the bus, either.

Bush's plan includes the troop surge, and then to put half the Iraqis to work digging a hole and the other half filling it back up. That ought to make them even better targets than they are now. Of course, a jobs plan is necessary and proper, but why is this the outcome of brainstorm three years after the fact. As Atrios says, why is this coming out as an idea NOW? Why weren't Iraqis involved in reconstruction and setting up the power lines and the schools and all the rest all along? Why were American contractors getting rich while the native Iraqis were unemployed and seething with rage?

The Congress, save McCain and Lieberman, is going to fight back against this, and hard. Senator Leahy's bill to stop war profiteering is great. And the Democrats may try to set a cap on troop levels in the country. But ultimately, the escalation strategy will go down in flames when the public expresses their outrage.

What Democrats in Congress will have to do (and already plan on doing) is use their bully pulpit to amplify the overwhelming public opposition to the war. Bush isn't up for reelection, so he doesn't give a damn about himself. But if he sees that in political terms the war could cost his party dearly in 2008, that may be the one thing that could pull him back from the precipice.

It's clear that lots of Republicans are already panicking about their 2008 chances, and it won't be long before most of the Republican senators up for reelection in 2008 are fervent war opponents, as well as any House Republican who won her or his reelection battle by single digits.

But it won't save them, just like it didn't save Lincoln Chafee.

This is the Republicans' war. They bought it. They broke it. They own it. And they will suffer the brunt of it.

And the more Bush and McCain escalate the war, the deeper the consequences will be.

And the best way for that public outrage to be amplified more and more is to have McCain and Lieberman keep speaking in public. Because everything they say offends the public. And the public will grow more and more indignant at this perspective.

It doesn't matter to Bush and his top aides whether or not Iraq is, for all intents and purposes, hopeless. They don't pay any downside costs of escalating, so they're willing to make American military personnel and American taxpayers bear any burden and pay any price for even the vaguest hope that this will in some way increase the odds of something they could plausibly label "success" happening.

That's a borderline-treasonous way of looking at things. Keep talking, guys. You'll have to bolt the doors at AEI and the White House.