Iraq Surrender Group Roundup

We've had more time now to digest the report from the Iraq Surrender Group and an array of opinions are out there.

In the Opinion Journal today, Shelby Steele discusses why there is such difficulty defining victory in Iraq.

Possibly the most confounding feature of the Iraq war, from the very opening of hostilities to the present day, has been the American government's utter failure to define what victory would be in this war. "Victory" has been a conjure word for the Bush administration, a Churchillian allusion meant to evoke the heroic perseverance shown in the great wars of the past. But no one in the administration has ever said what victory would actually look like. And, lacking this description, even those of us who have supported the war have seen trouble coming for some time. Without a description of victory, a war has no goal.

Meanwhile, Daniel Henninger speaks about the how the Baker-Hamilton report won't stop the bloodshed inside the Beltway.

Notwithstanding its 79 recommendations for "the way forward," the Iraq Study Group's primary purpose wasn't saving Iraq from catastrophe but saving the political system of the United States from catastrophe.

The commission's two chairs, Jim Baker and Lee Hamilton, make this explicit in the report's first pages. "U.S. foreign policy is doomed to failure . . . if it is not supported by a broad, sustained consensus." Leon Panetta, a Democrat in the House from 1977 to 1993, said at their news conference, "This country cannot be at war and be as divided as it is today."

These are essentially restatements of GOP Sen. Arthur Vandenberg's 1952 dictum amid the Truman presidency that "politics stops at the water's edge." More than a sentiment, Vandenberg's point was, as he put it, "to unite our official voice at the water's edge so that America speaks with maximum authority against those who would divide and conquer us." For the past three years, we have had the opposite--a domestic political war waged relentlessly at the water's edge.

In the Washington Times, Austin Bay discusses the options for the long war.

It isn't irony, it's history, our immediate history, where what we choose to do -- or not do -- will have extraordinary effects on the course of this challenging century.

Still, the week of the 65th anniversary of Japan's surprise attack on Pearl Harbor is a historically profound moment to consider what the military calls "courses of action" in Iraq and the Global War on Terror. It has been a week of "strategic" leaks. The Baker-Hamilton Iraq Study Group dropped hints, then the New York Times published Donald Rumsfeld's classified "goodbye memo" containing Iraq war options. On Dec. 4, the Wall Street Journal discussed Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Peter Pace's "study group," which is considering other alternatives.

In an interview that appeared in the Philadelphia Evening Bulletin, John McCain supplied a pithy reminder for all engaged in the debate: "in war, my dear friends, there is no such thing as compromise; you either win or you lose."

The Pace group recommends more military forces in Iraq (focused on Baghdad). It may view Iraq as a peacekeeping problem. The Journal wrote that Gen. Pace's group sees a U.S. pullback as triggering "more violence" and making "political compromise impossible."

Other opinions include this NY Post editorial, as well as Andrew McCarthy and Mona Charen at National Review.

And what would a roundup be with some fresh idiocy from The Great Stainmaker himself: Bill Clinton Supports Dialogue With Iran.