Quagmire with a human face.

Is this just another DLCish think tank that's going to concern-troll Democrats and liberals to effectuate poll-tested "moderate" policies, as usual without any sense of whether they are actually good ideas?

A "responsible withdrawal" over 5 years sure fits my description above. There's nothing responsible about leaving "advisors" in Iraq to get shot at while trying to accomplish what advisors-plus-much-more couldn't accomplish all this time.

Why can 40K troops do what 150K can't? Yes, that's a rhetorical question.

My understanding of Vietnam is that U.S. advisors getting shot at early in the war helped result in the build-up to full blown U.S. war there. We needed to protect the advisors, and then it snowballed from there. So now our self-proclaimed sensible middle are going to put us back in THAT position?

Total withdrawal by 2012? Astounding.

By 2012 the US will have had no military or diplomatic presence in Iraq for at least 3 years.

OMG proof positive that "moderate" think tanks are at least as stupid as the neo-cons.

If we simply say "no" three times then we get to go back to Kansas.

"These vital long-term U.S. interests in Iraq can be boiled down to Three No’s:
no regional war; no al Qaeda safe havens; and no genocide.
• No Regional War: The United States has an enduring interest in Iraq’s internal chaos not triggering
regional conflict, and in external actors not further exacerbating Iraq’s civil war.
• No Al Qaeda Safe Havens: The U.S. has an enduring interest in preventing Iraq from resembling
Afghanistan on September 10th, 2001.
• No Genocide: The U.S. has an enduring interest in preventing genocide in Iraq.
To secure these enduring interests, U.S. forces and civilian agencies will need to perform a number of core
missions: deterring or responding to cross-border incursions or aggression; counterterrorism; preventing
or stopping genocide; gathering intelligence and conducting surveillance; training and advising Iraqi
security forces; and defending key assets (e.g., airports and the U.S. embassy). Unlike today, U.S. forces
would not be focused on providing security to the population in Baghdad and elsewhere in Iraq. These
missions will require the following military capabilities: U.S. combat forces including quick reaction
forces; special operations forces; combat service and combat service support capabilities; intelligence
support; military and civilian advisors and trainers; and U.S. naval and air support, including basing and
overflight rights in Iraq and neighboring states."

Pure genius, and this co-authored by the President of this outfit.

I too wish for a pony.

OK, I promise to quit after this but (Isnt there always a but?)

Their argument seems to break down into:

Let's replace the incompentent bunch of losers over there today with.. Wait for it... The Armed Forces of the USA!

"quick reaction
forces; special operations forces; combat service and combat service support capabilities; intelligence
support; military and civilian advisors and trainers; and U.S. naval and air support, "

Thats it, it's all gone to shit, let's bring in the imaginary military to replace the real military.

What I want from the Dems is change.

What I'm going to get, I suspect, is two nickels and a dime for every quarter.

This is so depressing. There is a story in the Washington Post today about the cancerous growth of mercenaries in Iraq, which points to one way the "serious" Dems (aka crazed warmongers along the Lieberman-Clinton continuum) will continue to try to visit misery and devestation upon Iraq in the name of American power. The 2012 date is, at least, honest - if we could get honest answers from the Democratic presidential candidates, it would be lovely to see if they share the the D.C. elite opinion that we need to be in Iraq for as long as we've been in South Korea. I do wonder how this would effect liberal bloggers - on the one hand, shilling mindlessly for Dems, even as the Dems seemingly have no intention of mounting a true anti-war strategy, which would mean really going out and doing p.r. every day about Iraq in the onset to the September funding vote - and on the other hand, assuring us that they are anti-war too. A moment of simple clarity would be nice. If the American people are trapped by the elites of two parties which both essentially agree on continuing a senseless war, shouldn't we at least be informed of that fact?

great marketing phrase

"responsible withdrawl"

reminds me of nixon's "peace with honor"

interesting to think of would have thought of albright, perry, hagel and armitage as a peer group

AEI came out aftet USIP. USIP is building a new office on the mall between war memorials. It's there contribution to the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

Aside from the substantive problem that CNAS appears to be loading up with a bunch of water-carriers with bad ideas, I take issue with the next (Democratic) White House aligning itself with a bi-partisan think tank, purely for political reasons.

A President is the ostensible head of his or her national party. And the ideas of the President are the de facto mainstream ideas of the party.

From a political standpoint, if a Democratic President believes the policy proposals of CNAC are the best out there, then those policies should be considered Democratic policies, not bipartisan policies. I'm not saying that the President shouldn't align with a think tank that employs Republicans. Merely that the public perception should be that a Democratic Think Tank is so brilliant that EVEN REPUBLICANS admit Democrats have the right ideas.

Instead, when Democrats endorse bipartisanship out of the gate, the public perception becomes that EVEN DEMOCRATS concede that they need to go outside of their party to find the best policies.

Hey KB, what's your consequence management proposal?

I mean seriously, not your proposal for holding the US government to account, but for dealing with the problems of the three no's. Frankly, I think the second no is most relevant to US citizens, the first no is the next most relevant from an economic and geopolitical point of view and the third no comes after that.

Excellent point Space.

But face it, even the most adroit "plans" to get out of Iraq ASAP, such as that authoried by McGovern and Polk, prescribe a handover to some sort of multinational interim peacekeeping force. That is implausible. Shiites are not going to accept Sunni "guest" peacekeepers from Egypt or Pakistan. Kurds are not going to accept Turkish "guest" peacekeepers. The only "model" the Sunnis will accept is the one overthrown in 2002.

The full text of the June 27 CNAS paper does not yet appear at their site, but its flaw is to presume that US advisors would not become assassination or kidnapping targets the moment the US troops cover falls below a threshold. There is no proof that any of these units ever works, even marginally, except with substantial US support and when launched against another sect. The other elephant in the ointment is that there will be no reliable way to target backup air strikes. Target selection will be highly biased by sectarian and factional feuds and misinformation. Ditto for all the HUMINT BS the advisors get from their "Yes, we friends" Iraqi charges.

A poison pill against any 100% withdrawal by 2012: the mega-bases have already been built. The post 2008 president will have to chose between defending them, despite precarious supply lines, or demolishing them and lots of equipment to keep them out of hostile hands. Imagine al Jazeera playing repeated footage of US bases being blasted away, followed by ecsatic jihadis dancing admist the ruins of barracks, air base facilities, vehicles, "Little America" PX strips, and officer club swimming pools.

No proposal gets beyond square one without some olympian leap of faith. As Maxwell Smart often said, Would you believe ...."