David Brooks concisely and effectively nails our new Congressional majority. Beautiful.

The fact is there are two serious approaches to U.S. policy in Iraq, and the Democratic leaders, for purely political reasons, are caught in the middle, and even people like Levin are beginning to sound silly.

One serious position is heard on the left: that there's nothing more we can effectively do in Iraq. We've spent four years there and have not been able to quell the violence. If the place is headed for civil war, there's nothing we can do to stop it, and we certainly don't want to get caught in the middle. The only reasonable option is to get out now before more Americans die.

The second serious option is heard on the right. We have to do everything we can to head off catastrophe, and it's too soon to give up hope. The surge is already producing some results. Bombing deaths are down by at least a third. Execution-style slayings have been cut in half. An oil agreement has been reached, tribes in Anbar Province are chasing Al-Qaida, cross-sectarian political blocs are emerging. We should perhaps build on the promise of the surge with regional diplomacy or a soft partition, but we certainly should not set timetables for withdrawal.

The Democratic leaders don't want to be for immediate withdrawal because it might alienate the centrists, and they don't want to see out the surge because that would alienate the base. What they want to do is be against Bush without accepting responsibility for any real policy, so they have concocted a vaporous policy of distant withdrawal that is divorced from realities on the ground.

Comments

[Dave Tufte]

Broadly, hasn't this been the Democratic position in Congress for 25 years: let the Republicans make the policy choices, and passively and quietly adopt the good one while noisily but passively opposing the bad ones?