The Endgame Deadlock

By DAVID BROOKS
Op-Ed Columnist
The New York Times
July 13, 2007

Until this week I thought we were entering the last stages of the Iraq war. Roughly 40 percent to 60 percent of Republican senators have privately given up on the war. Senior G.O.P. officials have told President Bush that they are unwilling to see their party destroyed by this issue.

I figured that sometime between now and September the White House would be so isolated that it would have to launch withdrawal plans.

But ending a war is as complicated as starting one. In order to wind up the Iraq conflict there has to be some general agreement about how to do it. We’re nowhere close to that. In fact, the U.S. is now entering a phase you might call the Endgame Deadlock.

In this phase everybody argues bitterly over how to get out of Iraq, but amid the discord nobody can do anything about it. This phase — and with it, the war — could go on for a while.

In the Senate, for example, there are several major factions, but there’s no prospect that these factions are going to merge to form a majority that will change policy.

To simplify a bit, roughly 20 senators, led by John McCain and Joe Lieberman, believe in Gen. David Petraeus and the surge. There are roughly 30 Republicans, led by Dick Lugar, John Warner and Lamar Alexander, who believe that the U.S. should scale back its mission and adopt the Iraq Study Group’s recommendations. There are roughly 30 Democrats, led by Carl Levin and Jack Reed, who also want to scale back and adopt the study group’s approach. And finally, there are roughly 20 Democrats, led by Ted Kennedy and Russ Feingold, who just want to get out as quickly as possible.

In theory, it should be possible to get the 30 Republicans and the 30 Democrats who support the study group’s framework together to embrace a common plan. But Harry Reid, the Senate majority leader, is doing everything he can to prevent a bipartisan consensus. It’s much better politically for the Democrats to stay united and force the Republicans to vote with the president.

And even if Reid were to allow bipartisanship, in practice it’s hard to write a single piece of legislation that can get you 60 votes. Senior staffers are finding that if they tweak the language to get four more Republicans, they wind up losing seven Democrats. It’s a bit like immigration reform: In theory there is a centrist majority; in practice, it’s hard to put it together.

The deeper truth is that the end-the-war forces are divided on several fundamental questions, and there’s not even a mechanism for resolving these differences. Normally, war policy disputes are resolved in the executive branch, but in this case, the executive branch is unwilling to play.

First, is genocide inevitable? Some anti-war advocates believe Iraq is so broken that genocide is unavoidable, and we might as well get U.S. forces out of the way. Others find this view abhorrent and shortsighted.

Second, is there a middle way? Some argue that as soon as the U.S. announces its intention to withdraw, the Iraqi power struggle will begin in earnest. Iraqi security forces will collapse. The government will disappear. The U.S. has to be all the way in, or it’s got to get all the way out.

Others believe that’s a false dichotomy. The U.S. will still have vital interests in Iraq, like preventing a terror state and stopping an Iranian takeover. Military planners believe a reduced force is viable: 20,000 troops to protect the Iraqi government, 10,000 to train and advise, 10,000 in headquarters and a smaller number of special forces to chase terrorists.

Third, how exactly do you manage withdrawal? Will there be a receding line of U.S. troops, followed by an approaching line of Talibanization? How do you fight when every day your forces get weaker? It will take 3,000 huge convoys and 10 months to get out. How do you preserve soldiers’ faith in the mission and prevent a Saigon-style collapse?

Fourth, how amid withdrawal do you handle future Anbars? In that province, the tribes have united to fight Al Qaeda. When far-flung tribes in other places ask the U.S. to flood the zone to help fight terror, do we just say no?

The questions go on. Deadlock in Baghdad will be matched, in paler form, by deadlock in Washington. The next change in policy will not come from Congress or the White House.

It will come from General Petraeus in September. His recommendations — on troop strength, political strategy and everything else — will be the only coherent platform in town.