The Real World

In the aftermath of Mrs. Bhutto's assassination, thoughtful Americans have begun to reconsider their presidential options in light of one, overriding truth.

It's a dangerous world.

Without setting aside the very real dangers of global climate change, we must never forget old-fashioned perils such as rogue regimes with nuclear weapons - a genuine possibility in the case of Pakistan.

Our next President must, of course, be capable of addressing such dangers - should they arise - as well as acting with wisdom and foresight to avert them. He or she must also have the greatest possible freedom of action - consistent with our institutions and values - in order to act with speed and precision when the occasion calls for it.

That's why, in my judgment, we need a President who can disengage US forces from Iraq- ending President Bush's apparently open-ended commitment to pacify and unify a country which has been irreparably fragmented.

We can't afford to remain as we are - tied down in an endless conflict which is wearing down both our soldiers and their equipment and costing us the services of our rising class of junior officers. We need to get our troops home to refit, retrain, and rest up for the next crisis.

For there will be new crises. And we can never know when.

Yet, though we must get out of Mesopotamia, we must also leave that region in a sufficiently stable condition to sustain itself with new civil or international conflicts. Withdrawing will do no good if we find ourselves having to go back in a few years hence, to deal with a "Bosnia on steroids".

I set forth these considerations with the greatest reluctance. If I had my druthers, I'd want our next President to devote his or her energies to solving health care, finding the funds to improve K-12 education, and taking a serious swing at global climate change.

But there will be no money, no political capital, and precious little presidential time for such matters if we remain tied down in Iraq. The next president will wake up each morning to a briefing on Baghdad - end each day with another. He or she will spend a considerable portion of each day dealing with a war which should never have been - but which is - and every minute spent on Iraq will be minute not spent on make America a better place in which to live.

Which leads to one inevitable conclusion:

No candidate's domestic agenda makes the slightest difference without a plan for withdrawing from Iraq, while leaving a stable situation behind. There will be no health care reform, no bold environmental policy, no educational progress - no progressive agenda at all - so long as we remain in Iraq.

Which is why I've begun thinking seriously about whether this is the year to elect a Democrat. With the possible exception of Joe Biden, no Democrat has offered anything like a realistic vision for bringing our troops home. In the case of Hillary Clinton, at least, there's no plan for ending that commitment at all.

Which leads to this question:

If no Democrat has a plan for getting us out of Iraq, aren't we better off electing a sane Republican - assuming one is nominated - and letting the GOP tidy up its own mess?

After all, the two major parties have been trading the White House back and forth since 1992. Indeed - counting Bush 41 as a third Reagan term and LBJ and Ford as continuations, respectively, of JFK and Nixon - the pattern goes back to 1952.

If the next President is a Democrat, and he or she wastes his or her term cleaning up the mess in Mesopotamia - there's a good chance the GOP wins the White House in 2012. It could be 2020 before we elect a President with the will and resources to carry out a genuinely progressive agenda.

I realize that, in our modern world, we tend to live in and think for the moment. Electing a Democrat in 2008 would be far more satisfying than electing a Republican.

But until I see a Democrat with a realistic plan for Iraq, I continue to wonder - what's the point?