National Security

The President has a lengthy editorial in today's Wall Street Journal.  He opens with a reminder that he still has "the next two years -- one quarter of my presidency, plenty of time to accomplish important things for the American people." And closes with the best byline in the business "Mr. Bush is the President of the United States."  There is lots to parse, and take issue with, in between.  But the one line that stood out to me was the President's promise to "balance the budget by 2012 while funding our priorities and making the tax cuts permanent.  In early February, I will submit a budget that does exactly that."  You'll remember budgets as those things that Congress used to pass, before the Republican 109th came along.  There aren't many details about how the President plans to cut taxes, fund priorities, and balance the budget.

But maybe the President's fiscal goals can all be accomplished be eliminating all the senior State Department staff.  In more distressing news from the State Department, John Hillen the Assistant Secretary for Political-Military affairs is resigning his post, joining a long list of recent, top-level departures, all of them unfilled.  Hillen is described by the Washington Wire as "the principal link between State and the Pentagon and was leading the administration’s effort to build better security ties with Arab allies in the Persian Gulf in a bid to contain Iran’s growing influence."  At a time when America is facing unprecedented foreign policy challenges, we can little afford to lose talented people who are rushing to the exits of the flailing Bush Administration.  2008 can't come soon enough. 

In the coming weeks the Bush Administration will coming to the American people and essentially be asking for one more chance to fix Iraq.  Having rejected the more innovative ideas in the ISG Report, their plan will be more prayer than policy, and will have little chance of making things better for the troubled region.   The question Congress will be facing is given the extraordinary failure of the Bush Iraq policy do they guys deserve one more chance? And if not what is the alternative?

I for one am looking forward to Senator Joe Biden's hearings on Iraq that start next week.  He has a real chance to help establish an accurate picture of what has happened and is happening in the Middle East today. I hope one of the first people called is Secretary of State Rice, and let her explain to the American people her view of the theory behind our actions in the region and how we create a better path forward.   

There is a lot of talk these days about escalating the number of troops in Iraq, but this idea seems increasingly DOA.  Republican Senators Hagel, Smith and Collins have already said no, and possible GOP Presidential candidate Brownback certainly seems to be leaning no.  Bush simply doesn't have the votes for sending more troops into Iraq without making a more convincing case that it will improve conditions on the ground. 

Given that it is now become clear for the whole world to see that the Iranian-backed Shiite militias are at the heart of the American backed Iraqi government, the case that more troops will make lead to a "victory" has become much harder to make. 

The Times has a good piece looking at the global fallout from a homemade/bootlegged video captured on a mobile phone, the Iraqi government's very own Macaca moment.

The Times has a must read piece on the political impact of the now infamous bootlegged Saddam video:

For Sunnis, Dictator’s Degrading End Signals Ominous Dawn for the New Iraq

BAGHDAD, Dec. 31 — For Sunni Arabs here, the ugly reality of the new Iraq seemed to crystallize in a two-minute segment of Saddam Hussein’s hanging, filmed surreptitiously on a cellphone.

The video featured excited taunting of Mr. Hussein by hooded Shiite guards. Passed around from cellphone to cellphone on Sunday, the images had echoes of the videos Sunni militants take of beheadings.

“Yes, he was a dictator, but he was killed by a death squad,” said a Sunni Arab woman in western Baghdad who was too afraid to give her name. “What’s the difference between him and them?”

There was, of course, a difference. Mr. Hussein was a brutal dictator, while the Shiite organizers of the execution are members of the popularly elected Iraqi government that the United States helped put in place as an attempt to implant a democracy.

It was supposed to be a formal and solemn proceeding carried out by a dispassionate state. But the grainy recording of the execution’s cruel theater summed up what has become increasingly clear on the streets of the capital: that the Shiite-led government that assumed power in the American effort here is running the state under an undisguised sectarian banner.

The hanging was hasty. Laws governing its timing were bypassed, and the guards charged with keeping order in the chamber instead disrupted it, shouting Shiite militia slogans.

It was a degrading end for a vicious leader, and an ominous beginning for the new Iraq. The Bush administration has already scaled back its hopes for a democracy here. But as the Iraqi government has become ever more set on protecting its Shiite constituency, often at the expense of the Sunni minority, the goal of stopping the sectarian war seems to be slipping out of reach.

“We speak about the crimes of Saddam Hussein, but now here we are behaving in the same way,” said Alaa Makki, a prominent Sunni politician. “We fear that nothing has been changed. On the contrary, we feel it is going in a worse direction.”

After the invasion, Sunni Arabs, bitter at losing their place, refused to take part in Iraq’s first elections, allowing Shiites and Kurds to sweep to power. Americans here spent the following months persuading the Shiites to let the Sunnis back in.

The idea, at the time, was that involving Sunnis in politics would drain the insurgency of its violence. Instead, the violence got worse, and in February, the long-abused Shiites struck back, using the force of the state ministries and agencies that they now control.

Now, American officials are pressing Iraqi leaders, both Sunni and Shiite, to reconcile and have made it a central demand for continued support of the Iraqi government. But the prospects for mutual agreement seem ever more distant.

“I can’t think of any good reason for any level-minded person to be interested in reconciliation,” one secular Sunni politician said.

That unwillingness, shared by most of the Shiite political elite, is a serious challenge to any new American strategy proposal that President Bush may announce soon.

Also a challenge to the emerging Bush strategy is the Joint Chiefs, who are apparently more in touch with the political reality in Iraq today than the White House, as they have been making the case that more American troops means more violence:

The Bush administration is split over the idea of a surge in troops to Iraq, with White House officials aggressively promoting the concept over the unanimous disagreement of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, according to U.S. officials familiar with the intense debate.

Sending 15,000 to 30,000 more troops for a mission of possibly six to eight months is one of the central proposals on the table of the White House policy review to reverse the steady deterioration in Iraq. The option is being discussed as an element in a range of bigger packages, the officials said.

But the Joint Chiefs think the White House, after a month of talks, still does not have a defined mission and is latching on to the surge idea in part because of limited alternatives, despite warnings about the potential disadvantages for the military, said the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the White House review is not public.

The chiefs have taken a firm stand, the sources say, because they believe the strategy review will be the most important decision on Iraq to be made since the March 2003 invasion.

At regular interagency meetings and in briefing President Bush last week, the Pentagon has warned that any short-term mission may only set up the United States for bigger problems when it ends. The service chiefs have warned that a short-term mission could give an enormous edge to virtually all the armed factions in Iraq -- including al-Qaeda's foreign fighters, Sunni insurgents and Shiite militias -- without giving an enduring boost to the U.S military mission or to the Iraqi army, the officials said.

The Pentagon has cautioned that a modest surge could lead to more attacks by al-Qaeda, provide more targets for Sunni insurgents and fuel the jihadist appeal for more foreign fighters to flock to Iraq to attack U.S. troops, the officials said.

The informal but well-armed Shiite militias, the Joint Chiefs have also warned, may simply melt back into society during a U.S. surge and wait until the troops are withdrawn -- then reemerge and retake the streets of Baghdad and other cities.

Even the announcement of a time frame and mission -- such as for six months to try to secure volatile Baghdad -- could play to armed factions by allowing them to game out the new U.S. strategy, the chiefs have warned the White House.

The idea of a much larger military deployment for a longer mission is virtually off the table, at least so far, mainly for logistics reasons, say officials familiar with the debate. Any deployment of 40,000 to 50,000 would force the Pentagon to redeploy troops who were scheduled to go home.

In the coming weeks Congress must ask the tough questions of this failed Administration, and have them explain in plain simple English how they hope to navigate the terrible political reality of Iraq today.  I reprint something I wrote a few weeks ago:

When the President makes his grand announcement about a "new way forward" in Iraq early next year, it is going to be critical that we judge him not on whether it is a new strategy, but whether it is a better one, one that can plausibly achieve its objectives.  For example, what exactly are the troops going to do in Iraq when they get there? And if this is still a war, as the President describes, who is the enemy and how we will our troops engage and defeat them? Is the enemy the Iranian-backed Shiite militias? The Saudi-backed Sunni insurgents? Al Qaeda itself, a small but growing presence in the West?  Maliki's government, partners with the Shiite militias? The Saudis, who say they will intervene militarily if the Sunni Arabs continue to be targeted by Shiite militias? And if the troops are going in as peacekeepers and not warriors, shouldn't we say that, and admit this is a failed occupation and not a war? 

As has been said by many, there is no longer a military solution to our troubles in the Middle East.  By rejecting the core recommendation of the ISG Report, an enhanced diplomatic track intent on making progress on the political and economic problems of the region, the Administration almost certainly guarenteed that whatever path they followed would be new but not better.

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. 

Before his meeting on the Middle East in Crawford today, I hope the President gets a chance to read two pieces from the NYTimes this morning (I know this violates the no newspaper rule in Bushworld) that further document the political nature of the challenges we face in the Middle East today, and the limits of what our military can do:

BAGHDAD, Dec. 27 — The car parked outside was almost certainly a tool of the Sunni insurgency. It was pocked with bullet holes and bore fake license plates. The trunk had cases of unused sniper bullets and a notice to a Shiite family telling them to abandon their home.

“Otherwise, your rotten heads will be cut off,” the note read.

The soldiers who came upon the car in a Sunni neighborhood in Baghdad were part of a joint American and Iraqi patrol, and the Americans were ready to take action. The Iraqi commander, however, taking orders by cellphone from the office of a top Sunni politician, said to back off: the car’s owner was known and protected at a high level.

For Maj. William Voorhies, the American commander of the military training unit at the scene, the moment encapsulated his increasingly frustrating task — trying to build up Iraqi security forces who themselves are being used as proxies in a spreading sectarian war. This time, it was a Sunni politician — Vice Prime Minister Salam al-Zubaie — but the more powerful Shiites interfered even more often.

“I have come to the conclusion that this is no longer America’s war in Iraq, but the Iraqi civil war where America is fighting,” Major Voorhies said.

A second story describes the approach Iran has taken to increase its influence in the region, an approach very different from the one America has taken:

DAMASCUS, Syria — Early next year, Syria’s first domestically manufactured cars are scheduled to roll off an assembly line. They will have an Iranian name, be produced in a plant partly financed by a state-controlled Iranian car company and be made of parts from Iran.

Not long after that, Syria hopes to open two new multimillion-dollar wheat silos, add 1,200 new buses in Damascus, open another Iranian car factory in the north and start operating a cement plant — all in partnership with Iran. The two countries are also talking about building an oil refinery, opening a joint bank, constructing housing, developing electric generators and, someday, linking their rail systems through Iraq.

As the White House begins to rethink its strategy for dealing with the Middle East, particularly how to calm the chaos in Iraq, pressure to try to re-engage Syria has grown. Some Western analysts contend that Syria, with a government more pragmatic than ideological, can be pried away from Iran’s influence and convinced that its long-term interests lie instead with the West.

But Washington has spent years trying to isolate Syria, while Iran has for decades moved to entwine itself with Syria on many levels — political, military, economic and religious.

Iran is a country of many power centers with different pools of money, from funds controlled by grand ayatollahs of Qum, to those in the hands of the Revolutionary Guards. They may not all be directed by the central government, but they all help promote Iranian influence in Syria.

As a result, some Western diplomats in Iran say that, even if the United States tried, it might be impossible to extricate Syria from Iran’s orbit.

“Iranians have been working harder for longer than we realized,” said a European diplomat based in Damascus who spoke on condition of anonymity to avoid antagonizing Syrian officials. “They have stronger links going back more years than we were aware of.”

Syrian officials are extremely sensitive about the relationship with Iran. Part of the reason is fear of igniting sectarian tensions in Syria, which is about 80 percent Sunni Muslim. The president and his inner circle are from a minority Shiite sect, the Alawites, and Iran is Shiite.

While the Syrian power brokers have decided for practical reasons to align with Iran, political analysts in Syria say the government remains fearful of alienating the Sunni majority, especially amid widespread rumors that Iran is trying to convert Sunni Syrians to Shiism.

Concern among Sunnis is heightened because Syria is a major destination for Iranian religious tourists; as many as 500,000 a year visit Shiite sites in Syria. Iranian organizations have spent millions of dollars restoring, enlarging and maintaining Shiite shrines in Syria, from the center of Damascus, the capital, to the north, near the Turkish border.

Iran’s efforts to spread its influence around the Middle East have increased in the last two or three years, regional analysts say. They have been propelled by rising oil prices and American policies in the region, which have neutralized Iran’s enemies, Saddam Hussein in Iraq and the Taliban in Afghanistan.

“Iran has used this affluence of oil revenues over the last five or six years to play a beautiful game, from their perspective,” said Osama T. Elansari, a director of the Dubai International Financial Exchange who lives in Syria.

Iran’s efforts have often been most evident in Lebanon, where it has set up an informal economy in the south. It needs only to provide money to its proxy, Hezbollah, which has a construction arm, called Jihad al Bina, and a vast network of social services that dole out money and build schools and hospitals.

According to some estimates, Iran has spent tens of millions a month over the years in Lebanon. Riad Salameh, the governor of Lebanon’s central bank, said he had no idea how much money Iran had sent into Lebanon because it had gone via Syria, not through the central bank.

This story follows a very similar story yesterday about the growing influence of Iran in Afghanistan.  Kudos to the Times from their strong reporting on the Middle East in recent months. 

After so many years of mismanagement, our country needs to have a big conversation about our long-term strategy to bring democracy and prosperity to the Middle East.  The incoming Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Joe Biden apparently is going to do his best to use the Senate to lead this conversation.  Find stories about his plans, which begin with hearings the week of January 9th, in the Times and Post today.  The Times piece has an interesting insight into how the Administration has yet to fully grasp what losing their allies in Congress means for their management of our foreign policy:

Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware, the incoming chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, on Tuesday rejected a troop increase for Iraq, foreshadowing what could be a contentious fight between the Bush administration and Congress.

Mr. Biden, a Democrat, announced that he would begin hearings on Iraq on Jan. 9 and expected high-ranking officials, including Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, to appear.

As President Bush flew to his Texas ranch on Tuesday, a spokesman for the National Security Council urged the senator to wait for Mr. Bush to present his new Iraq policy next month before passing judgment.

“President Bush will talk soon to our troops, the American people and Iraqis about a new way forward for Iraq that will lead to a democratic, unified country that can govern, defend and sustain itself,” said Gordon Johndroe, the council spokesman.

The Times also has a story about the growing Iranian influence in Afghanistan, another good read for those trying to get a better understanding of the region's complex politics. 

Those of you reading the White House tea leaves know that it looks more and more likely that the President is going to announce a "surge" strategy for Iraq, in January.  In a surge, already overextended army and marine troops would see their tours extended, in order to temporarily increase the number of US troops in Iraq by up to 30,000.

The debate over sending more U.S. troops to Iraq intensified yesterday as President Bush signaled that he will listen but not necessarily defer to balky military officers, while Gen. John P. Abizaid, his top Middle East commander and a leading skeptic of a so-called surge, announced his retirement.

At an end-of-the-year news conference, Bush said he agrees with generals "that there's got to be a specific mission that can be accomplished" before he decides to dispatch an additional 15,000 to 30,000 troops to the war zone. But he declined to repeat his usual formulation that he will heed his commanders on the ground when it comes to troop levels.

Noted Middle East scholar, Naval Postgraduate School professor, and new addition to the guest blogging team at TPM Cafe Vali Nasr explains the what, why and potential consequences of the strategy:

New troops will be in Iraq not to police the streets and hold the line against the creeping violence, but to expand the war by taking on the Shia militias. This is an escalation strategy. Will it work; maybe, maybe not. But it runs the risk that it may very well provoke a Shia insurgency—something Iraq has not so far witnessed.

Make sure to read the entire post and to remember that what the President and Senator John McCain call a surge - which is opposed by commanders on the ground and the joint chiefs - is more accurately described as an escalation.

Intellectually exhausted, politically defeated and personally repudiated, President Bush and his Administraton are desperately trying to figure out what to do in Iraq.  As time goes on it is growing more likely that what they will settle on will be more prayer than policy.  They are going to put a series of things in motion that may work, but will not have a high or even probable likelihood of success, and then essentially just wish for the best.  They simply are no longer in control of what is happening in Iraq and the region, and have made it clear in recent weeks that they don't have the imagination, the humility and the strength to find not just a new path forward but a better one (see my most recent post for more).  

The Times today calls them rudderless.  The Post has yet another story about the intense military opposition to the "surge." A must-read Times op-ed today reflects on the Sunni-Shiite struggle, one that once again reminds us how unlikely it is that whatever the Administration does now will resolve the political and religious struggles that are driving the current worsening of conditions in Iraq. 

It is my sincere belief that once the Administration rejected the ISG recommendation of an intense regional diplomatic initiative they dramatically reduced the possibilty of a "victory" in Iraq and progress in a fraying Middle East.

It's almost impossible to write the six words that make up the title of this post without ending with a question mark.  But today's New York Times offers a glimmer of hope.  Or maybe it's the hint of a glimmer.  Either way, the news about Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Iraq's leading Shiite cleric and a man who holds great political power in Iraq, is promising:

[Ayatollah Sistani] has tentatively approved an American-backed coalition of Shiite, Sunni Arab and Kurdish parties that aims to isolate extremists, particularly the powerful Shiite militia leader Moktada al-Sadr, Iraqi and Western officials say...American officials have been told by intermediaries that Ayatollah Sistani “has blessed the idea of forming a moderate front,” according to a senior American official. “We wouldn’t have gotten this far without his support.”...

...Shiite infighting has paralyzed the government. Since Mr. Sadr’s loyalists began boycotting the government last month, the Parliament has been unable to form a quorum, preventing the passage of laws.

The new coalition is aimed at circumventing that kind of conflict, its leaders say, which is probably why Ayatollah Sistani is willing to lend his support.

Any agreement that would isolate Moktada al-Sadr and other extremists, while also allowing the Parliament to get back to governing would be a huge advance.  Although Tom Friedman's column from today has some sobering advice:

What people tell you in private in the Middle East is irrelevant.  All that matters is what they will defend in public in their own language.  Anything said in English, in private, doesn't count.  In Washington, officials lie in public and tell the truth off the record.  In the Mideast, officials say what they really believe in public and tell you what you want to hear in private.

I hope the President and his advisors are following Thomas Friedman's maxim (a maxim gleaned from decades of reporting on the Middle East) and paying attention to all facets of the Iraqi politicians they are counting on to make up this new, moderate coalition.  If the White House is only considering the private comments that Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish leaders make in meetings with the President, then their is a very real chance that the Bush administration will revert to form and wind up completely divorced from reality, yet again.

The Post has an explosive story out this am, one that blows to pieces the rationale behind the Bush/McCain "surge" strategy, and one that confirms that the Administration no longer has any idea about what to do about the mess they've made in the Middle East and Iraq (see my recent post No Way Out for more): 

The Bush administration is split over the idea of a surge in troops to Iraq, with White House officials aggressively promoting the concept over the unanimous disagreement of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, according to U.S. officials familiar with the intense debate.

Sending 15,000 to 30,000 more troops for a mission of possibly six to eight months is one of the central proposals on the table of the White House policy review to reverse the steady deterioration in Iraq. The option is being discussed as an element in a range of bigger packages, the officials said.

But the Joint Chiefs think the White House, after a month of talks, still does not have a defined mission and is latching on to the surge idea in part because of limited alternatives, despite warnings about the potential disadvantages for the military, said the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the White House review is not public.

The chiefs have taken a firm stand, the sources say, because they believe the strategy review will be the most important decision on Iraq to be made since the March 2003 invasion.

At regular interagency meetings and in briefing President Bush last week, the Pentagon has warned that any short-term mission may only set up the United States for bigger problems when it ends. The service chiefs have warned that a short-term mission could give an enormous edge to virtually all the armed factions in Iraq -- including al-Qaeda's foreign fighters, Sunni insurgents and Shiite militias -- without giving an enduring boost to the U.S military mission or to the Iraqi army, the officials said.

The Pentagon has cautioned that a modest surge could lead to more attacks by al-Qaeda, provide more targets for Sunni insurgents and fuel the jihadist appeal for more foreign fighters to flock to Iraq to attack U.S. troops, the officials said.

The informal but well-armed Shiite militias, the Joint Chiefs have also warned, may simply melt back into society during a U.S. surge and wait until the troops are withdrawn -- then reemerge and retake the streets of Baghdad and other cities.

Even the announcement of a time frame and mission -- such as for six months to try to secure volatile Baghdad -- could play to armed factions by allowing them to game out the new U.S. strategy, the chiefs have warned the White House.

The idea of a much larger military deployment for a longer mission is virtually off the table, at least so far, mainly for logistics reasons, say officials familiar with the debate. Any deployment of 40,000 to 50,000 would force the Pentagon to redeploy troops who were scheduled to go home.

When the President makes his grand announcement about a "new way forward" in Iraq early next year, it is going to be critical that we judge him not on whether it is a new strategy, but whether it is a better one, one that can plausibly achieve its objectives.  For example, what exactly are the troops going to do in Iraq when they get there? And if this is still a war, as the President describes, who is the enemy and how we will our troops engage and defeat them? Is the enemy the Iranian-backed Shiite militias? The Saudi-backed Sunni insurgents? Al Qaeda itself, a small but growing presence in the West?  Maliki's government, partners with the Shiite militias? The Saudis, who say they will intervene militarily if the Sunni Arabs continue to be targeted by Shiite militias? And if the troops are going in as peacekeepers and not warriors, shouldn't we say that, and admit this is a failed occupation and not a war? 

As has been said by many, there is no longer a military solution to our troubles in the Middle East.  By rejecting the core recommendation of the ISG Report, an enhanced diplomatic track intent on making progress on the political and economic problems of the region, the Administration almost certainly guarenteed that whatever path they followed would be new but not better.