In the Arena

Today’s Iraq Roundup

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Crooked Talk Express: I’m just boggled by McCain’s recent behavior. I mean, you might disagree with him on an issue, but he’s usually been honorable and intellectually honest about his position. No longer. This is the sort of flagrant, Bushian baloney-slicing that he ran against in 2000. Is it his faltering campaign? Is it age? It’s sad to see a good man embarrass himself in this way.

This is a pretty strange piece from General Barry McCaffrey, in which the general’s head and heart seem to moving in different directions. His head says Iraq’s a total mess; his heart says that we must succeed lest there be regional chaos. But is that the real choice? I’d like to think that if we concentrated the big brains–civilians like James Baker, elected officials like Senator Jack Reed, military people like McCaffrey and Petraeus–on a creative withdrawal plan we might be able to extricate ourselves, save our Army and prevent a regional war. No chance of that in the Bush Administration, of course. But it’s the only vaguely plausible option that remains.