Sen. *'s lurch into the nonsensical

NRO Editorial:

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Hagel’s speech lurched into the nonsensical when he said he “will not support sustaining a flawed and failing policy in Iraq.” That’s precisely what he’s doing. Moreover, he wants to mandate it. The policy crafted by former defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld — minimizing the American military commitment in the hopes of convincing the Iraqis to “pull up their socks” — was manifestly failing. But Hagel wants to end the surge and return to the Rumsfeldian approach. “If we are making real progress in Iraq, then why are we putting more and more combat troops into Iraq?” Hagel asked. This is obtuse. It is because we are committing more troops in a different strategy — one that draws on lessons from past counterinsurgencies — that we may finally be seeing signs of progress.

Hagel argued that the Senate bill “does not impose a precipitous withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq.” Really? It mandates that the drawdown begin in 120 days. It establishes the “goal” — whatever that means exactly — of completing the drawdown by March 2008. Hagel made much in his speech of Congress’s being a coequal branch of government with the executive. So it is. But that doesn’t mean its role is to manage military operations. The Senate bill is, at the very least, of dubious constitutionality.

Hagel repeated the fiction — popular among critics of the war — that we can, even after we have “redeployed,” continue a limited counterterrorism mission in Iraq. No one ever explains how we would do that in an environment almost certain to include a worsening civil war, ever more beleaguered government security forces, and resurgent Shiite militias. With the surge showing promise, Hagel, Nelson, and the rest of the Democrats want to pull the plug on it and guarantee our defeat in Iraq. They can try to dress it up all they like, but that’s what their mandated withdrawal would do.

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The editorial also takes Nebraska's other senator to task for his disingenuous rationale for changing his vote. We have reached a point where incoherence has been substituted for logic by those who are content with losing the war in Iraq. Are the voters of Nebraska scratching their heads too?