After all, they took power 9 days ago! Wait a second, why is Denny Hastert still Speaker?

OH!

Because Democrats don’t take power until January.

It would be nice if complaints about Democratic leadership occur after they’ve been in power for more than negative 60 days.

Ditto on the Democrats. Nancy Pelosi and Steny Hoyer have not even assumed their positions yet as Speaker and Majority Leader, and won’t do so until January. Yet, the writer has decided their anti-war platform has already doomed itself to failure. Even once they are, they can press for change, but the real change is still up to George Bush. The only way Congress could force a withdrawel is to refuse to fund it, and there is almost no possibility of that happening in the near future.

What is possible, is that we will get some more openness on the war and on how bad our options actually are. Hearings held by the House, may shed light on how we got ourselves into this mess, and that may prevent another president from such a costly mistake further down the road,

And for those who don’t want to confront the ugly fact, Iraq is lost. Everyone is looking to the Dems, to ISG, to the generals, just anywhere for a glimmer of hope. Face it. No one has an answer, including anyone here. Even if we had unlimited money and troops to “spend” there just isn’t a decent solution. I’ve asked it before, what does ‘winning’ mean? Just a stable Iraq? That’s what it was under Saddam. Do we really want a stable Shiite country rather than a stable Sunni country? Is that what this was all for? In a fortress Bahgdad, just as in a fortress Kabul, there is only the thin vaneer of an appearance of stability. Outside the capital, the militias rule. That was not the case under Saddam. We blew it. We broke it and we can’t fix it.

CS, agreed, I wonder if some details have slipped out or something.

As for this piece I find it kinda odd that the claim is made that Baker is no Alexander or Hector. I’m pretty glad he isn’t. Those were military men of an ancient age, despite their talent as warriors and generals. Even Alexander’s “policy of fusion” wouldn’t apply to the modern situation. As great as Alexander’s empire was with the different peoples that comprised it, it couldn’t last after his death as his policies were not sustainable by his sucessors.

Baker is a diplomat and only a diplomatic solution can lead to sucess in Iraq if any sucess is possible. A solution is needed that will outlast the immediate need and set up an enduring stability, or at the very least to minimize the instability with institutional reform. To achieve this we must be able to build a relationship among the various factions and this cannot be simply dictated and enforced by our military presence. That like Alexander’s rule would dissipate with our leaving. Solutions must be founded on diplomacy and compromise, though backed with a firm hand initially.

Even the most talented diplomat will be sorely tested by the Iraq situation, but at least the right set of tools are now being used to address the problem. Even with the tools , however, the doctor isn’t always able to save the patient who is on death’s dor, no matter how skilled he is. Still his chances are much better than a mechanics.

You may be right but, gee whiz, we JUST changed our government and now BOTH parties are competing to figure this all out.

It seems to me that often things get worse before they get better. Sometimes a paradigm has to splinter so that a new one can take its place.

I choose to be hopeful.