Feingold's simple suggestion focuses attention on tough questions

Sen. Russ Feingold's bold move, to up the ante on Iraq and set a target for US withdrawal, is making a lot of people very uncomfortable. And George W. Bush is just one.

You can see other members of Congress, in both parties, headed for their bunkers to shield themselves from incoming media questions.

You would think Feingold had done something radical, when in fact all he has done is to ask a simple question: What is our plan to get out of Iraq, and what is the target date?

He asked that open-ended question in June, introducing a resolution asking the President to establish a timetable to end US involvement. A modest proposal, to be sure, but even that went nowhere.

So now Feingold has gone the next step. If the President won't offer a target date -- and if the Congress won't even ask him to set one -- Feingold will offer his own.

December 31, 2006 is the date he chose. The President and his supporters say it's an abritrary date, and we can't have that. Well, why not? As Feingold pointed out on Meet the Press, we've picked deadlines for other events in Iraq:

This is what I've noticed in the other times that we've done things well in Iraq. This is what we've done. We've set a target date for the transfer of sovereignty, and we said it was a good thing that we did it a day early. We set a target date for elections, in January 31, and some people said it would never happen. When it happened, it was a good thing. We set a target date for the constitution, and it's taking a few days more, but when that constitution is achieved, it's going to be a wonderful thing for the Iraqi people and a step forward.

Why wouldn't you want a vision, an idea of when we can measure success in terms of time and when the American people can know that our brave and courageous men and women can come home? It seems better than just having a stay-the-course concept, which is what the president seems to have. . .

And the president has presented us with a false choice. It's either stay the course and cut and run. What I'm suggesting is we can have a middle course, a course that allows us for success in Iraq and allows us to return to the larger issue, which is the fight against terrorism all around the world.

That last is a key ingredient of what he's saying, but it gets lost in the shuffle. He believes the war in Iraq is hurting our larger effort, the war on global terrorism, and undermining US security. The Iraq war is making us less secure, he believes, and it is hard to argue.

Feingold says what he proposes isn't a deadline, but a target date. That is mostly semantics, but Feingold would leave room to adjust the date to reflect developments. Bush, Cheney & Co. insist that any deadline -- they prefer the term "arbitrary deadline" -- would simply tip our hand to the insugents and allow them to wait us out. (What are they doing now?)

Is that true of any date we might choose? If you don't like 2006, how about 2008? Do I hear 2010? Sometimes you get the feeling that it isn't the insurgents we're trying to keep the information from; it's the American people, who are getting more restive by the day. They aren't saying cut and run, but they are saying we made a mistake and should find a way out. The mood they're in, the end of 2006 may not be any too soon.

But if that's not the right date, how about a dialogue about what our plan is? Is there any intention to ever get our troops out? What are the prospects? If not in 16 months, how about 28 months? People are beginning to fear the answer is not 16 months but 16 years.

Having an orderly plan and target date to leave Iraq in a year or two is not "cut and run." No one is suggesting our troops leave now, in the middle of the night, with no warning. But Feingold is suggesting that discussion about an end date should be on the table. He calls it "breaking the taboo" about naming a date, or even talking about one.

The conservatives and chickenhawks say we disgraced ourselves by leaving Vietnam. Many Americans, including many of us who served there, feel that our real mistake was getting involved in the first place, compounded by staying there too long. That is one of many reasons that Iraq seems like Vietnam. We should have learned then that longer casualty lists are not the way to honor the dead, and that the best way to support the troops is to bring them home.

Do you support the troops or not? Are you with us or against us? Life is not that simple, even in Crawford, Texas these days.

Meanwhile, the Army's top general says the Army's planning for four more years in Iraq. “We are now into ’07-’09 in our planning,” Gen. Peter Schoomaker said, having completed work on the set of combat and support units that will be rotated into Iraq over the coming year for 12-month tours of duty. About 138,000 troops, including 25,000 Marines, are there now.

Nebraska Sen. Chuck Hagel, a decorated Vietnam veteran, scoffed at the idea that U.S. troops could be in Iraq four years from now at levels above 100,000.

"We should start figuring out how we get out of there," Hagel said on "This Week" on ABC.

"Stay the course" is not a policy, Hagel said. "By any standard, when you analyze 2 1/2 years in Iraq ... we're not winning." And he used the V-word about Iraq.

Even Sen. Trent Lott, R-Miss., who followed Feingold on Meet the Press. -- and who said the U.S. is winning in Iraq -- said: "I do think we, the president, all of us need to do a better job, do more," by telling people "why we have made this commitment, what is being done now, what we do expect in the process and, yes, why it's going to take more time." AP story on Hagel, Lott, others.

Russ Feingold and Cindy Sheehan have focused our attention in the past week, and are making people think about what our country is doing in Iraq, and why.

I expect we will soon learn from Limbaugh, Drudge, Sykes, McBride et al. that Feingold has Communist ties, or at least was in the same room once with someone who does.

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One problem with blogging is that it is too immediate and does not leave enough time for rumination. More later, after more rumination, on what this might mean politically in 06 and 08.