Compromised strategies

Rich Lowry:

THERE'S an easy way for a GOP senator to burst from semi-obscurity to the front pages: offer a compromise plan on Iraq.

Sens. John Warner (Virginia), Dick Lugar (Indiana) and Lamar Alexander (Tennessee) have all done it. Warner even double-dipped. He had dissented from President Bush's Iraq policy in July by sponsoring a compromise plan with Lugar, and then garnered headlines in August for a much-hyped break with Bush that was only a continuation of his previous break. How many times can a senator break with the president until he just stays broken?

No contribution to the Iraq debate is as analytically pathetic as that of these halfway Republicans. Their reflex toward compromise - honed in their collective 12 terms in the Senate - leads them to believe that any problem can be negotiated away, so long as enough members of the world's oldest deliberative body get together to deliberate earnestly (and a little pompously).

They usually are right when it comes to hospital reimbursements under Medicare or the funding for the Richard B. Russell National School Lunch Act. But not when considering war strategy in a conflict where terrorists, tribal leaders and Iranian agents won't conform to the just-so assumptions of Washington lawmakers.

In August, Warner called for pulling out 5,000 troops by Christmas, on the theory that Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki will be likelier to perform if we make a gesture toward leaving. As if Maliki were fated to be ineffective with 160,000 U.S. troops in country, but might bridge the country's sectarian divides if we went down to 155,000.

Warner maintains that the withdrawal also would say to bordering nations, "Why don't you try to help the United States of America resolve this problem?" We're supposed to believe Syria and Iran will foment chaos in Iraq when we have 160,000 troops, but when we're at 155,000, they will suddenly favor a stable democracy allied to America?

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War is an emotional issue which means compromise has already failed. You either try to win or you don't. Magical thinking will not make things happen. Our enemies will see proposals like Warner's as a sign of weakness that gives them hope. That is the opposite of what we should be trying to do. Our objective is to make them think their cause if hopeless. right now they are down to Democrats in congress as their last best hope and joining the Democrats will give the enemy more hope and will not help one Republican win an election.