Iraq's All Over But the Shouting (in the halls of the Senate)

So the Senate continues to refuse to debate the debate on Iraq, leaving Sen. Jon Tester to come up with this great quote:

On the Senate floor a few moments ago, Jon Tester said that he's traveled all around his home state of Montana, and "not a single person told me we should debate about whether or not to have a debate on Iraq."

The House has decided to take up their own resolution opposing the escalation, and you're starting to see headlines like Dems lay siege to war plans. This was a major tactical error by the Republicans. The public story is now about how they're afraid to even debate Iraq, and Administration officials are now being called on to answer that very question (and so far, SecDef Bob Gates said the debate will not hurt troop morale. Sooner or later this debate will come to a head, and with each passing day anger grows at those who try to shut it down. Additionally, nobody will forget that initial vote.

As the escalation begins (and with far less Iraqi troops showing up than expected), some in the traditional media are finally starting to figure out the horrible truth: that Iraq is already lost, and this "surge" is nothing more than an attempt to prolong the agony and make it another President's problem. Here's David Ignatius, not my favorite columnist in the world:

Somehow, after four years, the debate on Iraq is still animated by wishful thinking. The White House talks as if a surge of 20,000 troops is going to stop a civil war. Democrats argue that when America withdraws its troops, Iraqis will finally take responsibility for their own security. But we all need to face the likelihood that this story isn't going to have a happy ending.

That was the underlying message of the National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq, released last week. It warned the administration that if the sectarian conflict continues, as it almost certainly will, "we assess that the overall security situation will continue to deteriorate." The current conflict isn't just a civil war, the analysts noted; it's worse -- with criminal gangs, al-Qaeda terrorists and Shiite internal feuding adding to the anarchic state of the country.

Ignatius wants to "plan for the worst," and lays out some steps to do so, which predictably highlight protecting the oil supply. Now he takes some shots at the non-existent "precipitous withdrawal" position, as the pundits are wont to do, but he does recognize that we've put ourselves into a position where there are no good options. I wish, however, he could understand what Josh Marshall is saying, and the fountains of truth available in this post (best of the year so far).

One can agree or disagree with whether or not we should 'disengage' or withdraw entirely. But (Edward, of the NYT) Luttwak hits on the key point that our current national debate seems to ignore entirely: Namely, that Iraq is in a state of civil war which we our combat forces are not in a position to stop. We cannot stop it. But our presence is dragging it out, arguably making it even more deadly by making it more protracted [...]

But getting our policy in order is also being stymied because the political opponents of the war aren't willing to say that, yes, the policy has failed. Not 'defeated'. To be 'defeated' you need to have some other party 'defeat' you. This is just a failure. But whichever it is, that bogey is being used by the White House to scare off the opposition. It's a failure. There's no recovering it. And the unspeakable reality -- truly unspeakable, apparently -- is that it's not that bad. Horrible for the Iraqis. Horrible for the American dead. Terrible for American prestige, power and honor. All that. But not the end of the world. The future of our civilization isn't at stake. And our physical safety isn't at stake. We'll go on. We are not the brave British standing behind Winston Churchill bucking us up with the confidence that "We shall defend our island whatever the cost may be; we shall fight on beaches, landing grounds, in fields, in streets and on the hills. We shall never surrender ..." Those aren't the stakes here. Put it in those words and it's almost comical. President Bush wants us to believe that it is because it serves his grandiosity and direct political interests to believe that, to believe that his political interests -- where everything, history, legacy, etc. is on the line -- are the same as ours as a country. They're not.

There would be nothing but honor in admitting this failure, and not in racheting up the fear around the consequences of that failure. We've heard this all before. Every time somebody yells and screams their fool head off (somebody like a Joe Lieberman) that we'll all be wearing babushkas if we don't contain Communism in Vietnam, or that we'll all be made Dhimmis if we don't set up a unity government in Iraq - those people are essentially engaging in mental masturbation. The fastest way to votes is to scare the crap out of people, and so it continues. Marshall speaks Bibles of truth here, and it's verified by the fact that the sacrifices are so low to the nation.

When evaluating assertions of great importance, it's always useful to see whether people talking hysterically actually act in ways consistent with their rhetoric. I've said many times that I've never found the ethical questions surrounding abortion particularly troubling, for a central reason: I won't take the "pro-life" moral position seriously until its supporters do. The anti-choice lobby uses lots of language that suggests a moral issue with stakes large enough to override a woman's fundamental rights--"life," "killing babies," etc.--but this given that most American pro-lifers (among many other inconsistencies) think women should face fewer legal sanctions for obtaining an abortion than for spitting on the sidewalk, there's no reason to take their moral claims seriously [...] When high-stakes language is combined with small-stakes, obviously incommensurate policy objectives, there's no reason to take the former seriously.

This revelation will never reach those who are so far gone with war-fever or so cynical that they feel their path to political survival can only be traversed through fear. But it's absolutely true. The failure we have in Iraq is a moral tragedy and particularly devastating to the people in Iraq. Nobody's going to "follow us here." Nobody's going to pull a Max Cady and hang on the undercarriage of the chopper airlifted out of Baghdad and strike on the streets of America. Al Qaeda may speak in those terms, and call it a great victory, and call America a paper tiger, but it's high past time we stop constructing foreign policy based on what a bunch of fundamentalist nutcases say. Al Qaeda should not be listened to, but defeated by going after them at the source (Afghanistan, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, where 9-11 hijackers may have had ties to the Saudi government, anyone?) and restoring our global credibility.

We have a President who is so determined to be vindicated by history that he wants to create epochal chaos (including moving this war into Iran against all reason and without the support of allies). His outsized view of his own importance in history should not be encouraged. The honorable thing to do is to leave this horrible situation we created, because we simply cannot improve it no matter how hard we try.

UPDATE: Garance at TAPPED added something I left out. This surge of 20,000 troops into a population of 6 million can't practically work. The lack of real courage to say "we have to sign up a million kids now and put them into Baghdad to calm it down" proves that this isn't the central front in the ideological struggle of our times.