I will begin with a paradox: the off-and-on struggle between the White House and Congress about near-future Iraq policy has two unacceptable positions vying for supremacy but yielding a hybrid that neither side wants either explicitly or tacitly but which appears to be the best course at present nonetheless: incremental disengagement without diluting military capability, focused mainly on not only the (largely unsuccessful) surge but political movement by the Iraqis spurred by meaningful benchmarks. Now, though abstractly (and I must add, instinctively, since I lack the close knowledge upon which a reliable opinion would be formed) I favor a strategy of withdrawal and redployment (but not a reflexive one jerking to polls), such a feat, if doable consistent with the myriad of interests that call for attention, is clearly not doable by President Bush, whose entire orientation and store of assets is geared toward fighting until victory. And that's simply a fact of life we have to deal with. It's a vector, if you will, set by an election, and can't be changed basically short of that very remedy. I won't detail the countless steps, military, diplomatic, political, cultural, social, etc. that would have to coalesce ably in the hands of a leader with the mindset and the commitment to make what is "somebody else's policy" and foreign to Bush, their own.
