Let me use this chance to needle the GOP.
The reason we do not have alternatives now is that so many GOP boosters viewed Victory as certain. I could make a list, but I think that so many know it.
There is some old saying that roughly goes, "Until you understand that you might lose, you cannot win."
This is why OIF (and even OEF) has always been about the struggle within Isalm and the MNF's attempt to break the deadlock and show a third-way forward, neither Arab Strongman nor Radical Islamic tyranny (except the French, who sit home, to their eternal shame).
It is only those who poorly conceptualized a "War on Terror" and "World War Three" (even "An End to Evil") who have misled themselves and, now, are left groping for alternatives, having never framed the effort properly from the outset. This is why liberals and only liberals, to borrow a phrase, can bring about the proper perspective on counterterrorism. This is what GOP "strong on defense" gets you at the opening of the 21st Century ...
Stepping off the soapbox ...
There are quite a few options available to help cut the quagmire Gordion knot. Strategic Retreat-to-Kurdistan is a fraction of the range of pressure and steps that can be tried, if there is American political will to be creative. So far, this White House seems to continue the worst of the Rumsfeldian tradition of hope-for-the-best-and-don't-plan-for-the-rest. We'll see ... what comes from Rice's new initiative may be indicative of whether there is a true shift in outlook.
Last, assuming that one is willing to leave uninvited, just as one arrived uninvited (as the Saudi Prince put it so succinctly), the question is what indicators would you use to signal that a counterinsurgency operation was failed completely, that the situation is not salvageable. The payoff to "success" is huge, so even a smallish chance of pulling it off even in some limited fashion makes for a compelling expected value, so to speak.
I have my two key criteria, which I don't share out of fear that they become self-fulfilling prophecy. One of them has been breached. The other hangs in the balance. An increase of troops may make a different in the ongoing assessment of whether, it too, has been crossed, signalling that retreat is smart.
BIG PICTURE
Folks continue to look for what is the right frame of reference for looking at these questions. Charlie Rose closed his show last night by asking Fareed Zakaria, (paraphrase) "How should we think about this, what is the bigger picture?"
The Big Picture is how to confront radical Islam, globally and over time. The operation in Afghanistan was about physically ending a terrorist base of operations, supported by a radical state sponsor. The after-action has been about trying to bring about stable political institutions and to mitigate intimidation counter-campaigns.
Iraq was a gamble that grand-scale political reform was a way forward to combat the political appeal of the jihadi message. Whether attaching a nation-building exercise to the global effort to confront radical Islam was a practical undertaking is yet to be decided, although the war costs are now suggesting otherwise - that is was too much to try, even if it was worthy.
Whatever is decided, stay or leave (precipitously even), there is a perpetual need to keep pressure on the terrorist groups; and, to the extent that the chaos of a withdrawal might provide sanctuary, the option to pre-empt any overt re-organization jihadi groups ought to be maintained, in the most robust way possible (i.e. as a combination of might and right, not just fiat)
sullylink
