to dig out of this hole, all we need is a bigger shovel

Tonight, the president is going to address the nation. The substantive content of his speech (to the extent that anything issuing forth from this particular president's lips is substantive) is already well-known: he's going to make a case for sending more troops to Iraq. The buzzword is "surge".

Which I suppose is catchier than "more of the same, only harder!"

I don't get it. Why make a case? Why act like dissenting opinions matter? As a member of the 74% or so of the public that don't think this Iraq adventure is going so swimingly, I have to say I find it almost insulting that he would go through the motions of pretending like he gives a damn what anyone else thinks.

Don't get me wrong--I do believe that as Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces of a sovereign nation, it is within his constitutional authority to fuck up on foreign policy as much as he likes, without asking anyone's permission. It's a priviledge of the office, and one that he has exercised vigorously. (I also believe that it is the duty of the congress to put a stop to such things by using the power of the purse.)

That this war is unpopular is not sufficient reason to stop it. (Of course, neither was the fact that it was popular reason enough to start it.)

No, the reason to stop this war it is that on the best days, the criteria for victory was not realistic. The rest of the time, it just didn't (and doesn't) exist.

The chief argument against complete withdrawal from Iraq is that we have, in the prescient words of Colin Powell, "broken it". The power vacuum that we created has enabled a civil war. Herein lies the problem: the only way a war (civil or otherwise) ever really ends is by one side defeating another. Therefore, if we were serious about ending the conflict within Iraq, we would have to take sides.

Since the average House Intelligence Chairman doesn't have the first clue about the difference between Shia and Sunni (and neither do I--nor do I care), it is difficult to imagine a scenario in which Americans as a group could be rallied to one cause or another. More to the point, why should we be? That we would be unwilling to actually do what it would take to end the violence in Iraq doesn't reflect a weakness of our national character--it merely highlights the fact that we simply don't have a dog in this fight.

But to leave Iraq is to admit that we screwed it up and can't fix it. The thing is...WE SCREWED IT UP AND CAN'T FIX IT!!!. To stay (or surge) is to do nothing more than delay the inevitable consequences of our actions. We do so at a considerable cost, however you chose to measure it.

Instead, the president would doom us to an endless cycle of violence, retribution, and face-saving.

Skip the speech. Not only is there the A&E premier of The Sopranos, but BET is starting The Wire from the begining in the same time slot.

Addendum: a commenter at Hit and Run writes:

"Here is how it works:

G. W. Bush proposes a surge of troops, thinking that the new Democratic congress will not be stupid enough approve it.

Then, when things get worse, the Republicans can say "Well, if the Democrats would have just given us the troops, things would have been different", and they can easily shift the blame to the "spineless" Democrats.

Of course, the trouble with Bush's plan is that the Democrats might just be stupid enough to give Bush his troops."

The fact that this is actually a plausible explanation shows you just how far we've fallen here.