Dems on "Phased Redeployment"

I was really hoping that they wouldn't start like this, but they have. And still no real specifics.

Democrats poised to take control of Congress said Sunday that they would press to begin a phased U.S. military withdrawal from Iraq within four to six months, part of an agenda aimed at overhauling key aspects of U.S. policy in the Middle East.

"First order of business is to change the direction of Iraq policy," said Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), who is in line to become chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee next year when Democrats become the majority party in both chambers of Congress.

And

Senior military officials have recently voiced increasing concern that the security benefits of keeping large numbers of troops in Iraq are outweighed by significant downsides to the heavy U.S. presence. Among them are a perceived reluctance by Iraqis to take the lead in stemming the violence as long as U.S. forces are there.

"We have to tell the Iraqis that the open-ended commitment is over and that we're going to begin to have a phased withdrawal in four to six months," said Levin, who also appeared on "This Week."

Levin was joined in his call for a phased pullout by Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.), who is in line to become chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada, the Democratic leader in the Senate, told NBC's "Meet the Press" that decisions on drawdowns should rest with U.S. military officers in Iraq. Still, Reid said that "we need to redeploy" and that a withdrawal should start within several months.

Reid actually sounds like the voice of reason. But you'd best note, that if the generals decide draw down more slowly than Reid likes, it will be blamed on Bush.

The problem here really is coming back to the congress attempting to weaken the President. Foreign policy and war are both in the executive branch and that burns them bitterly.

Then there is McCain wanting more troops in Iraq.

Even so, it's unclear how far GOP lawmakers will be willing to go to challenge the White House and back calls for a drawdown. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said Sunday that he still believed the United States needed to send more troops to Iraq to curb sectarian violence and reduce the influence of heavily armed Shiite militias.

"I believe that there are a lot of things that we can do to salvage this, but they all require the presence of additional troops," he said on "Meet the Press."

"The question, then, before the American people is, 'Are we ready to quit?' And I believe the consequences of failure are chaos in the region, which will spread," said McCain, who is widely seen as the front-runner for the 2008 GOP presidential nomination.

I don't see how more troops will help. You can only saturate the troubled areas to such a level before the population starts resisting and start helping the insurgency. You also have to consider that what is commonly being called a civil war in Iraq, which is really just in Baghdad, is at a very low intensity. So low in fact that you could view it as a civil war through insurgency. I'd say more likely than not it's mostly problems with the militias that Maliki refuses to take control of and continues to allow free reign in the worst areas.

The worst idea sounds to be gaining the most traction though.

Members of both parties said they expected the Baker-Hamilton commission to recommend that the United States hold a conference with representatives from Iraq's neighbors to seek greater cooperation in pacifying the country and creating a stable government.

Biden told ABC that Iran and Syria should be included in such a conference because of their influence in the region.

Baker recently met with an Iranian envoy at the United Nations to discuss the prospects for cooperation.

But a proposal that calls for joint meetings with Syria and Iran would pose thorny diplomatic problems for the administration, which has labeled Iran part of an "axis of evil" and has been reluctant to engage either country.

Bolten stopped short of rejecting such a conference, but made it clear that the White House didn't believe dialogue with Iran and Syria would improve matters.

"I don't think there's been a communications problem. There's been a cooperation problem," he said. "Iran and Syria have been meddling in Iraq in a very unhelpful way."

Iran has ties to Shiite groups in Iraq, has large numbers of intelligence operatives in the country and has been accused of supplying components for bombs that have been used to strike Iraqi and U.S. troops.

The problem with the Iran/Syria play is that they could just not play, or worse, they could play and completely undermine the solution. They'd then have an excuse that the US buggered it up and they really really tried to help. They'd win irrespective of the results, and expecting them to allow the US any credit for the results of success is beyond reason. This proposal makes partitioning look like a reasonable proposal.

The use of counterinsurgency tactics have been working. There are very few areas that are in open conflict right now. Those areas can be brought to heel with time, but that still would require controlling the militias and the related insurgents. Economic incentives are sparse in the sectors where open conflict is occurring. I think that will continue to inflame the situation. Maliki is becoming more of a liability as time goes on. He isn't trying to stabilize the environment, he's attempting to solidify his power. That action alone is causing the Sunni insurgency and the related militias into a corner where their only choice is to fight.

It also appears that the really hard-core insurgents and sectarian fighters really don't want peace. They want to drive out all those that oppose them. Thus the sectarian atrocities that pop into the news regularly.

Baghdad, just in it's structure, is an irritant to the problems. A huge population that is divided into sectarian areas keeps the combatants separate and provides them internal support. The police themselves are ineffective when not complete collaborators. These are the people that security will have to be handed to for the US to leave, and frankly, I see no way to clean them up sufficiently other than complete replacement of the people there and creating a national force that regularly rotates police officers in and out of the area. It won't help them in their job, but it will ensure that they aren't collaborators or won't be effective for an extended period.

Topics that keep you nervous.