Iraq: The End Is In Sight Whether We Admit It Or Not.

[Ed. Note: Below is a post I started about three weeks ago. While there has been a lot of new news on this topic, I find that little of it adds much to the substance. So, I decided to go ahead an post it].

On Tuesday [11/14], I argued that we ought to put aside, for now at least, the debate over the run-up to the Iraq war. Howard Kurtz of the Washington Post comes to the same conclusion but states the reasons much more eloquently:

In political terms, the debate between President Bush and the Democrats over who knew what when on WMD is hugely important. But it's an argument about yesterday.

In real-world terms, the tentative debate that is starting to take shape about how to salvage the situation in Iraq is far more important. It's an argument about tomorrow.

The WMD shootout is more passionate, more colorful, more driven by a desire to win history's verdict on whether the war was a mistake. The press is really getting pumped about this, since it lets Bush backers paint the Democrats as revisionist liars and Bush detractors accuse the president once again of willful distortion.

The second debate, by contrast, is a depressing one with no great options, unfolding against the backdrop of continuing American and Iraqi casualties. . . .

Something tells me the politicians are reading the polls, which show record low support for the war and record high feelings that Bush justified the invasion by misleading the country.

But the polls don't make a solution any easier to come by, not for those who worry that a U.S. pullout would cause the fragile Baghdad government to collapse and lead to civil war.

Which is why the WMD debate is so much easier: All you have to do is bash the otherside.

Freed by from fear by (or perhaps gripped by a new fear becuase of) Bush's and the War's plummeting approval ratings (new USA Today/Gallup poll results here), Congress is beginning to get involved in this latter debate. The Senate passed overhwelmingly (79-19) a resolution calling for a "significant transition to full Iraqi sovereignty" and "the phased redeployment of United States forces from Iraq" in the next year. Also passed: an amendment to the Armed Services appropriations bill expressing the view that "2006 should be a period of significant transition to full Iraqi sovereignty."

These sentiments are almost completely symbolic and are so vaguely worded that a White House spokeswoman was reportedly able to claim that: "The Senate endorsed administration policy, which is a conditions-based withdrawal in Iraq. " But symbolism is important, and the claim that the resolution endorsed the administration's policy is pathetic rubbish.

I am very conflicted on this issue [as are the Democrats]. I have long argued that, having gone into Iraq, we cannnot afford to fail. I still believe that, but the politics is going to make that concern moot. According to the USA Today/Gallup poll linked above, 19% of Americans want the troops brought home now and another 33% want them brought home within a year. Those numbers are only going to go up as time passes, and with the 2006 elections staring the Republicans in the face, only an al-Zarqawi orchestrated attack in the US could prevent a significant "redeployment" of American troops from Iraq next year.

Note to the Iraqis: "Ready or not, we're outta here!"