TPM Reader WB flags this passage in a piece just out from the Times of London …

But there are deep fissures within the US Administration. Robert Gates, the Defence Secretary, who has previously called for direct talks with Tehran, is said to be totally opposed to military action.

Although he has dispatched a second US aircraft carrier to the Gulf, he is understood to believe that airstrikes would inflame Iranian public opinion and hamper American efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan. One senior adviser to Mr Gates has even stated privately that military action could lead to Congress impeaching Mr Bush.

A bit further down there’s this …

The hawks are led by Dick Cheney, the Vice-President, who is urging Mr Bush to keep the military option “on the table”. He is also pressing the Pentagon to examine specific war plans — including, it is rumoured, covert action.

This looks like a critically important piece just out from Michael Hirsh in Newsweek. The quick summary: the implications of the ‘surge’ policy aren’t at all understood at all in the US political conversation. The ‘surge’ isn’t a ramped up effort to get a hold of the security situation in Iraq so that American troops can come home. The whole policy is based on the assumption that Iraqis can’t police or stabilize Iraq, that the American military will have to do it for them and that we’ll be there for five or more likely ten or more years more before we have any hope of leaving.

Under Petraeus’s plan, a U.S. military force of 160,000 or more is setting up hundreds of “mini-forts” all over Baghdad and the rest of the country, right in the middle of the action. The U.S. Army has also stopped pretending that Iraqis—who have failed to build a credible government, military or police force on their own—are in the lead when it comes to kicking down doors and keeping the peace. And that means the future of Iraq depends on the long-term presence of U.S. forces in a way it did not just a few months ago.

There’s a really biting irony here, which is that this really is how you run a successful counterinsurgency, albeit with many more troops than we have available or in theater. And, in a modified form, it’s also how you prevent an insurgency from coming into existence or spiraling out of control. I know there’s this often doctrinaire debate about whether the occupation was destined to come to this bleak point or not. But things wouldn’t have been nearly as bad if the White House and the Secretary of Defense hadn’t insisted on the shiftless, lackadaisical and incompetent approach we’ve followed, ignoring the reality of the situation until domestic politics in the US forced their hand.

But what’s done is done.

Set aside whether the Petraeus plan is unlikely to succeed or virtually certain to fail. And set aside — for the sake of clarifying a separate set of issues — how many more US troops would die with this new approach. (With this sort of intensive involvement in securing Iraq, the answer has to be, a lot.) The question that we need to ask is whether it’s worth trying to prevent the Iraqi civil war from running its course given our now depleted resources and how many other vital national interests are now imperiled by our continued presence in the country.

Central to the Republican line on Iraq and much more to the Democratic one than I think is sometimes realized, our whole vision is now governed by Iraq-myopia, the delusion that our national destiny is at stake in Iraq. But it’s not. We’ve done horrible harm to ourselves and the Iraqis. It’s a disaster, a catastrophe. But it’s not everything. It’s actually not even close to everything. And until we really get our collective heads around that fact I doubt we’ll ever get ourselves free of this mess.

Andrew Sullivan: “What’s more telling is how unpopular the war is in Britain, and how an entire generation of Brits have now grown up thinking of the United States as a bullying, torturing force for instability in the world. That’s not the America I love – but it is the image of America that Bush and Cheney have built for the largest generation of human beings ever to grow up on the planet. In Italy, the government has fallen because there is no longer support for even a minimal presence in Afghanistan, let alone Iraq.”

This is the critical question, when you consider the aftershocks of what President Bush has wrought over the last 6 years. On the evidence of the last six years, is the US an aggressive, destablizing force on the global stage or a benign, ordering force?

Who can give an answer to that question that they’re proud of?

Obama on the Iraq War resolution from November 2002, a month after the vote …

Random but interesting political trivia, courtesy of TPM intern Eric Kleefeld.

Before Senator Linc Chafee was turned out of office in 2006, when was the last time a senator had lost his seat in Rhode Island? Seventy years ago. It hadn’t happened since 1936.

And if you think that’s a streak. How about Vermont? An elected US Senator from Vermont has never been defeated for reelection.

Ever.

Now, bear in mind that senators have only been elected for about a century. And there was one Vermont senator who got booted out of office. That was Republican Sen. Frank Partridge way back in 1930. But he was an appointee. The people of the state never voted him into office.

From Ha’aretz …

The United States demanded that Israel desist from even exploratory contacts with Syria, of the sort that would test whether Damascus is serious in its declared intentions to hold peace talks with Israel.

In meetings with Israeli officials recently, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was forceful in expressing Washington’s view on the matter.

The American argument is that even “exploratory talks” would be considered a prize in Damascus, whose policy and actions continue to undermine Lebanon’s sovereignty and the functioning of its government, while it also continues to stir unrest in Iraq, to the detriment of the U.S. presence there.

…

When Israeli officials asked Secretary Rice about the possibility of exploring the seriousness of Syria in its calls for peace talks, her response was unequivocal: Don’t even think about it.

Israeli officials, including those in the intelligence community, are divided over the degree to which Syrian President Bashar Assad is serious and sincere in his call for peace talks with Israel.

Anyone want to try this question again?

It’s gotta be good if … (from the WSJ …)

In his latest remarkable political reincarnation, onetime U.S. favorite Ahmed Chalabi has secured a position inside the Iraqi government that could help determine whether the Bush administration’s new push to secure Baghdad succeeds.

In a new post created earlier this year, Mr. Chalabi will serve as an intermediary between Baghdad residents and the Iraqi and U.S. security forces mounting an aggressive counterinsurgency campaign across the city. The position is meant to help Iraqis arrange reimbursement for damage to their cars and homes caused by the security sweeps in the hope of maintaining public support for the strategy.

…

The new position is vaguely defined, and it is too early to tell how much power Mr. Chalabi will ultimately wield. How much money will be available to pay claims and how it might be awarded and disbursed remains to be finalized, too. But he is a skilled political infighter who has often shown a talent for making the most out of whatever hand he is dealt. Mr. Chalabi also maintains close ties with key political allies of Mr. Maliki such as radical Shiite Muslim cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, which gives him extra sway within Mr. Maliki’s government. Indeed, U.S. Embassy officials suggest Mr. Chalabi’s closeness to Mr. Sadr is a major reason he was offered the liaison post.

Already, some U.S. officials are expressing concern about Mr. Chalabi’s new role, fearing he will undercut the elaborate system of elected and appointed local governments that American officials have been cultivating over the past three years. American and Iraqi critics also worry that Mr. Chalabi, a Shiite, will use his clout to ensure that Sunni Muslim neighborhoods of the city are hit hardest by the new security crackdown, a move that would further inflame Iraq’s sectarian tensions.

Today’s Must Read: the Democrats’ new strategy for combatting the president’s handling of the war in Iraq.

“Major announcement” coming from Vilsack.

Maybe he’ll announce his VP pick?

Late Update: Alas, no. He’s dropping out.

Sigh, and then there were 31. Or, I guess actually seven. My bad.

Later update: Sources say Vilsack bailed because of money.

As you know, Gov. Vilsack has gotten out of the presidential race. Not a big surprise really. And arguably the big story so far in the 2008 cycle is just how fast the race is developing — how quickly frontrunners are being annointed, how soon formal announcements are being made, how quickly people are dropping out, etc.

And I’m curious how much of this sped up cycle is due to blogs and web media. I don’t mean to ask whether this is the ‘netroots’ flexing its muscle, though that’s an interesting question in itself. But the pre-primary presidential winnowing process is largely a matter of buzz and a feedback loop between buzz, organzing and fundraising. People generate buzz, they get supporters, they get more money, that leads to more buzz, etc. Or in other cases, people have a lot of money. So they look formidable. And they get supporters and buzz, etc.

We can argue over whether money is driving buzz or vice versa. But a lot of the pre-primary phase is this process of sampling, often with relatively small sets of people. And the perceptions of those samples pick up steam and often become self-fulfilling. So is it the web and the more rapid sampling it allows — partly in fundraising but much more in buzz — that’s ramping the process forward and making it so fast?