Lieberman lays out a new plan for Iraq

In an op-ed in the Washington Post today, "Why We Need More Troops in Iraq," Joe Lieberman lays out a plan for Iraq that presages where the Bush Administration will likely end up with their own "way forward" plan in January.  No matter where you come down in this debate, it is worth reading Lieberman's argument in its totality.  An excerpt:

I've just spent 10 days traveling in the Middle East and speaking to leaders there, all of which has made one thing clearer to me than ever: While we are naturally focused on Iraq, a larger war is emerging. On one side are extremists and terrorists led and sponsored by Iran, on the other moderates and democrats supported by the United States. Iraq is the most deadly battlefield on which that conflict is being fought. How we end the struggle there will affect not only the region but the worldwide war against the extremists who attacked us on Sept. 11, 2001.

Because of the bravery of many Iraqi and coalition military personnel and the recent coming together of moderate political forces in Baghdad, the war is winnable. We and our Iraqi allies must do what is necessary to win it.

The American people are justifiably frustrated by the lack of progress, and the price paid by our heroic troops and their families has been heavy. But what is needed now, especially in Washington and Baghdad, is not despair but decisive action -- and soon.

In the last few months on this blog I've tried hard to help all of us come to a better understanding of what is happening in Iraq and the Middle East so we are more likely to come up with not just a new way forward but a better one.  Lieberman makes an important argument in his piece, one that needs to be considered and debated.  I'll start by looking at the argument in his first paragraph:

While we are naturally focused on Iraq, a larger war is emerging. On one side are extremists and terrorists led and sponsored by Iran, on the other moderates and democrats supported by the United States. Iraq is the most deadly battlefield on which that conflict is being fought. How we end the struggle there will affect not only the region but the worldwide war against the extremists who attacked us on Sept. 11, 2001.

While there is much I agree with in this op-ed, the logic of this first graph is problematic,and I think further indicates how exhausted the "war on terror" frame has become to understanding what is happening in the Middle East today.  The Senator asserts that our main adversary in the Middle East are those forces aligned with Iran, and that it is the next step in the "war on terror" begun in 2001.  The problem with this argument is that in Iraq these forces - Iranian-backed Shiites and Al-Qaeda/Sunni and Baathist insurgents - are on opposite sides and are in many areas battling each other.  To lump Al Qaeda, Iraqi Sunni insurgents and the various groups supported by Iran and Iran itself into a single category labeled "radicals, extremists, Islamic fundamentalists, the 9/11 terrorists." is so simplistic in its formulation that it is misleading, and continues the kind of black/white thinking that has been such an important contributor to the mess we are now facing in the Middle East (recall that Iran helped us defeat the Taliban in Afghanistan, or that Sunni Al Qaeda believes the the Shiite faith of Iran is an illegitimate form of Islam). 

Lieberman is right that the decisions we make as a nation in the next few months about our strategy for the Middle East are going to be important, even historic ones.  There is little doubt that we need to have a big conversation about what to do, and it appears the Democrats are ready to ensure that Congress is leading this debate. But what is critical is that we get to a better and more accurate place about what is happening over there, and what our options are; at the heart of that effort will be to come to a new and more accurate understanding of the complex political and religious realities of the Middle East today. 

A good place to start is to reject the overly simplistic thinking articulated by Lieberman in this piece.