Is this Where the CW Is On Iraq? (Holy Crap.)

"It is time for the American people to confront all the things that the president never had the guts to tell them about for three and a half years."
- New York Times, Editorial, 10.23/06 (LINK)

I think that line speaks volumes, both about where we are now and, more crucially, why we're there. Just this weekend another sample of the Bush administration's almost tasteless chutzpah reared its hideous head in the form of our president denying he ever stated U.S. policy in Iraq amounted to "staying the course." (Yeah, I know this shouldn't be possible, much less attempted, but ThinkProgress caught him in the act; I got wind of that through Dan Froomkin's thingy in the Washington Post.)

If it weren't for the bloody mess such talk has sought to cover, this could be dismissed as politics as usual. I posted something last week on some signs that home-front support for the war has collapsed, but that's like playing soldier in the sandbox next to the conclusions William Arkin reaches in his national security blog for the Washington Post (titled "Early Warning" in case you want to check it out beyond this one item).

The gist of Arkin's post is that U.S. policy has shifted outright and nakedly away from if we withdraw to when. It reads like a slap in the face less because the sense of absolute certainty that informs the argument than the stark admission that, yes, we will be eating shit on this deal. Just three months ago, I'd argue the conventional wisdom rested on the premise that we couldn't withdraw in the near-term. And that's what makes a passage like this from Arkin's article so jarring:

And what of the enemy? Muslim extremists and terrorists will celebrate our defeat, emboldened even more into believing that they can 'win' their war, just as they once defeated the Soviet empire in Afghanistan. It is our punishment and the conundrum: They will celebrate, and they may even be momentarily strengthened. But by stepping off the treadmill, we will also remove so much of the inspiration and certainty that fuels our enemies.

The part in bold gets at why leaving makes sense - and the comparison to a treadmill is painfully apt. Arkin's analysis, painful as it is, provides an enlightening read. Unless you're firmly bought into this war, you'll find yourself nodding more than you'll want to.

In a related piece - both to this point and the post below - David Broder checked in on what Democrats may do vis-a-vis Iraq if they get control of Congress. In all likelihood, they will get Bush and the GOP to shift the policy in Iraq, which, unfortunately, will expose them to charges of "betraying" the American mission in that country some 30 years hence. If that happens, it happens. The main thing is stopping the rot now, politics be hanged.