Iraq in Washington: Through the Looking Glass Posted by Heather Hurlburt

The combination of plotting, forethought and willful blindness that passes for Iraq policy discussion in Washington right now is so odd that, after all day trying to think up a clever interpretation for you, I am reduced to stealing a device from The Note to list what I think the dilemmas are:

Five Things "Everyone Knows" About Iraq Policy -- and the corollaries no one knows

1.  "Everyone knows" the Administration will pull out troops next year -- the cognoscenti are debating how many pullouts and whether it's trumpeted in the State of the Union.

1a.  No one knows what progressives can/should do in response to this.  Kevin Drum found a conservative blogger who thinks that if Bush "wins" the war, it would fall off the front pages and Dems would win in '08 on domestic issues.  Unfortunately for Iraqis, it looks unlikely that we will be able to test that one out neatly.

2.  "Everyone knows" that the big-name potential '08 candidates for the Dems are being advised to stay out of the Iraq fray.

2b.  But no one knows how that will play out, either.  Note that Bayh, Biden and Clinton joined Feingold and Kerry in voting for the Democratic amendment requesting an Administration withdrawal timetable.  All but Kerry also voted for the Warner amendment that omitted the timetable and no permanent bases language but was otherwise just about identical in telling/asking the Iraqis to get ready to carry their own water.   

3.  "Everyone knows" that public support for the war is collapsing.

3b.  But public support for an alternative is not congealing.  The latest Gallup numbers still have support for immediate withdrawal under 20 percent, support for adding troops under ten percent, and large blocks of support for "out in a year" and "out in 1-2 years."  I heard a Democratic pollster make a strong argument that what the public is saying is that they want to see troops coming home but not feel that we have "cut and run" -- ie, what it looks like the Administration is going to try to give them next year.

4.  "Everyone knows" that, as one of my speechwriter buddies put it to me, the Administration and its progressive critics have come around to the same idea about what to do next -- except one side believes a phased withdrawal will work and the other doesn't.

4b.  Except, umm, no one's told John McCain.  As the blogger beloved said to me the other night, is McCain Barry Goldwater in the 1960s or the 1980s?

5.  "Everyone knows" that we don't really know enough about what's happening on the ground.

5b.  But it seems terrifyingly likely to me that, as Iraq policy gets taken over by very visible, public politicking -- only a lateral move from the weird private politicking that drove it from 2001 -- we are already making the next round of mistaken and unchallenged assumptions that have the potential to parallel the fruits of arrogance and foolishness that we are reaping now.  "We" means us progressives as well as the folks in power... for we are surely going to get blamed for whatever happens next.

That much I know.

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