Iraq War: Debating how to get out

One of the great entertainments for Democrats is trashing each other over the nuances of abstract policies.  If you don't get some pleasure out of doing and/or watching that, you shouldn't be a Democrat.

We're starting to see a bit of that now over the Iraq War.  I think Atrios hits the right note about the current discussion among war critics in this post: Policy and Posture 08/22/05.

[Matt] Yglesias says there are genuine policy differences about Iraq in the party and we should therefore welcome a genuine argument about that. Fair enough, to the extent that it's true. But, look there are two issues here, even though they tend to be confused.

The first issue is whether the Iraq war, and supporting it, was a good idea. We'll allow some wiggle room for hindsight conversions, as in "if I knew then what I know now..." but basically that question is still out there. War supporters don't want to come back to that issue, preferring to brush it under the table in favor of debating the "what we should do now" question. But, as a matter of political posture, the only way for the Democrats to be the "anti-Republicans" on the Iraq war is in fact to take the position that the war was a bad idea. I actually can't fathom why unity on this matter is so hard to achieve, other than the fact that the Democratic political industrial complex which supported the war can't admit error. ...

The Democrats may not want to be the "Iraq was a bad idea" party. But, frankly, that's the only real coherent political posture available to them. And, while bloggers and pundits and everyone else can figure out where on the spectrum between "get out now" and "stay the course" they actually sit, it's largely a pointless policy debate. Given the complexity of the situation, the only real policy position is "put competent people in charge." We didn't manage to do that in '04, and I don't imagine that the "we should've gone to war but then not [Cheney] it up" posture will work any better in '06 and '08. Given the rising anti-war sentiment in this country it will certainly do worse.

Politically, the most important difference within the Demcratic Party is between those who oppose the Bush policy in Iraq and those (like Joes Biden and Lieberman) who essentially support it.  Opposing the policy means basically insisting on an early exit.

The entire history of the Iraq War from the preparatory buildup to today suggests that the Bush administration will handle it incompetently, whether it's a continuation of the present situation, escalation or withdrawal.  What the Democrats need to do is articulate the "get out" position and the reasons for it.  There's not much point in getting too bogged down in the details of the various risks and possible scenarios.

The Iraq War is a disaster.  It will end badly for the US.  Democrats who try to set up a pretty and successful option are just opening themselves up to be blamed for whatever goes wrong when we eventually pull out.

And it shouldn't need to be repeated much, but with today's Dems you never know: The Republicans will try to blame the Democrats and war critics for their unbelievable disaster in Iraq.  Better to concentrate on undercutting that argument now be hitting it head-on than to try to take meaningless defensive positions to avoid the accusations.  The accusations will be there.  And the Reps won't hesitate to use them against the Joe Bidens of the Party if they think it's convenient.