After The Surge

Jonathan Rauch:

What I think I’ve learned from the surge is that Bush and McCain are right. The surge’s gains are real and should not be thrown away. But Democrats, Lugar, and other skeptics are also right. Bush and McCain have not figured out a way to build on the surge.

This is not for want of strategic ideas. A succession of expert witnesses offered an assortment of suggestions in Senate hearings earlier this month. Here are the leading contenders.

• Instead of propping up the central government in Baghdad, federalize Iraq, decentralizing security and many other state functions.

• Instead of pleading with Iraqis to share power, lock the United Nations, the neighbors, and the Iraqis in a room and broker a deal backed by international muscle and regional support.

• Instead of seeking a national political accommodation, stitch together a patchwork of local cease-fires and enforce them with U.S. and other peacekeeping forces.

• Instead of unconditional engagement (the Bush-McCain approach) or unconditional disengagement (the Democrats’ preferred approach), go with conditional engagement, making continued U.S. support contingent on progress in Baghdad.

The first two options do indeed seem the most promising strategic options right now. "Conditional engagement," however, also means a credible threat - and intention - to leave Iraq if some kind of self-sustaining political arrangement - federalized or otherwise - is not reached. At some point, the McCain commitment to stay for a century if necessary and the Obama pledge to withdraw regardless will have to find a middle line. That's what the next president will have to figure out. The question is: who would best be able to do that, while bringing the country along with him? At this point, I honestly don't know. Except that Clinton would be the worst of the current three options.