Those of us who jumped off this bus in 2003 have found ourselves in an increasingly crowded wilderness. Our job now is to think creatively and strategically about how best to manage the failure in Iraq for our long-term advantage, at minimal moral cost. That is the current conservative challenge. Everything else is spin.
Here is something for AS to ponder.
Thesis: there is NO creative and strategic thinking that is going to come out of the Right.
Why? Because Nation Building, the statecraft of it, is inherently Liberal. Therefore, as Peter Beinhart noted, look for "Liberals and only liberals ..."
In the end, the only thing that will coalesce Conservatives 'in the wilderness' is blame-and-run.
Sorry.
It's additionally bad, because the Conservative putative leader, Bush, is the target of anti-American propaganda, and the widespread forces outside the nation working to deny him "a Victory" are very strong indeed. In other words, even if a reframing was possible, it might get spoiled out of spite (don't forget that the embassy hostages were released just moments after Carter left office, not during ...).
What's more - as if that were not enough - the Conservative leader seems still to be convinced, despite the above, that he can apply the right combination of 'tools' to actually pull off a reasonably functioning central government in Iraq and pass the baton to Iraqi Security Forces, without additional help, i.e. America alone can carry the day still and the enormous go-it-alone risk will be vindicated (with all the greater glory that goes with it). Also, he still believes that changing course before the end of his term will be viewed 70 years down the road as having been shortsighted.
However, in case you think that one-sided, here is the really bad news.
The Liberals, who could really reframe this thing, are "stuck" in opposition mode, and seem, themselves unable to "be creative".
It's a double-bind. Only the French can rescue us. I don't mean that completely facetiously, either ...
There is still plenty to be done and tried, but the politics of it are exceptionally difficult.
