Senator Richard Lugar and Senator George Voinovich, both senior Republicans, have called this week for some kind of coherent Iraq exit strategy to be developed.
Senator Voinovich had this to say:
"It's time for the United States to put together a comprehensive plan for gradual disengagement in Iraq," Voinovich said. "We're running out of time and I don't think it's fair to the next administration to say, 'Hey by the way, we're leaving this baby for you guys to figure out.' "
It's inspiring to see a partisan voice clearly call for not making this "someone else's problem", where that "someone else" is anyone other than George Bush, Dick Cheney, and friends.
Senator Lugar said this:
"The president may believe that he can simply continue on with or without the congress, but I think he is wrong in that assumption.
"My fear is that at some point we will have a withdrawal from Iraq that is very disorderly and not very well planned," he said in excerpts released by the station.
"That would be a tragedy for the troops, a tragedy for Iraq, a tragedy for us."
Again, the Senator sees the actual strategy of "failure after, but not on, my watch" that the current administration is using and refuses to go for it.
Of course, they're already being sniped at by other members of their own party. Consider this particular bit of nonsense from Lindsey Graham:
As much as I respect Sen. Lugar, I think it's unfair to the troops in the field to say the surge is not working."
"The military part of the surge is definitely working," Graham said. "There's no question in my mind that there's improvement in stability and new political alliances being formed."
It's unfair to the troops to say that the asinine, not-actually-a-surge "surge" strategy isn't working? Seriously? It's a little more unfair to them to put them continuously in harm's way to try and hide George Bush's ever-swelling shame. But Mr. Graham feels okay, because there's "no question in [his] mind" that the surge is working, and new alliances are being formed. Of course, John McCain thought it was working two months ago, but his numbers were made up. Despite the real and continuing trend of increasing violence over time and the fact that both the Iraqi military and that nation's infrastructure are largely imaginary, die-hard war supporters won't let reality stand in the way of their strong beliefs.
Curiously, reality still appears to disagree with people like Mr. Graham. Consider the fact that the Iraqi army can't hold areas cleared by American troops during our recent offensive in Baquba. But that's okay, because new alliances are being formed. Specifically, we're making deals with local militant groups to help fight al Qaeda.
Obviously, part of the pressure here comes from the pending election season. While it's sad that people need to be kicked into action by the possibility of losing their jobs, this highlights something very important -- this is why we have elections. Whether they're caring people or cynical bastards, our political figures depend on our continued good mood to keep their jobs.
This, at least, is democracy in action.
CNN article
al Jazeera article
(Notice that the al Jazeera article is willing to show a wounded American soldier in the field. This is something our own media and government bodies tend to assiduously avoid, in an act of intense disrespect for our soldiers who have volunteered to serve us around the world. It's not a good thing to pretend that our people don't pay for our choices.)