I’ve been advising the Bush administration to define down their definition of victory for the whole-year-plus I have been blogging, and they have obstinately done the reverse at every turn. Most recently, Dick Cheney expressed things in near apocalyptic terms in an exclusive interview with John King of CNN. Here’s what Cheney said in response to a question about the Democrats’ drawdown plans (both Levin’s and Kerry’s).

You’ve got to remember that the Osama bin Laden-types, the al Qaeda-types, the Zarqawi-types that have been active in Iraq are betting that ultimately they can break the United States’ will. There’s no way they can defeat us militarily. Their whole strategy, if you look at what bin Laden’s been saying for 10 years, is they believe they can, in fact, force us to quit, that ultimately we’ll get tired of the fight, that we don’t have the stomach for a long, tough battle and that we’ll pack it in and go home.

If we were to do that it would be devastating from the standpoint of the global war on terror. It would affect what happens in Afghanistan. It would make it difficult for us to persuade the Iranians to give up their aspirations for nuclear weapons. It would threaten the stability of regimes like Musharraf in Pakistan and the Saudis in Saudi Arabia. It is absolutely the worst possible thing we could do at this point. It would be to validate and encourage the terrorists by doing exactly what they want us to do, which is to — [pull out of Iraq]

This is terribly unfortunate rhetoric. By engaging in this kind of hysterical rhetoric, it makes it impossible for Cheney and Bush to spin a drawdown as anything but a great victory for jihadists. And that is absurd. Moreover, it is delusional to think we can stay in Iraq or not announce a timetable for withdrawal. This will become very plain tomorrow when Iraq Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki announces his national reconciliation plan.

A timetable for withdrawal of occupation troops from Iraq. Amnesty for all insurgents who attacked U.S. and Iraqi military targets. Release of all security detainees from U.S. and Iraqi prisons. Compensation for victims of coalition military operations.

Those sound like the demands of some of the insurgents themselves, and in fact they are. But they’re also key clauses of a national reconciliation plan drafted by new Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who will unveil it Sunday. The provisions will spark sharp debate in Iraq—but the fiercest opposition is likely to come from Washington, which has opposed any talk of timetables, or of amnesty for insurgents who have attacked American soldiers.

I think Spencer Ackerman of The New Republic put it best.

It’s hard to see how Bush can reject Maliki’s proposal, but it’s worth stating that he should accept it wholeheartedly and begin negotiations for a decent interval to get out of Iraq. He’ll be able to say, first, that he ended the war, and second, that he ended it in accord with his objective of allowing a democratically-elected government to decide its future for itself. It may not keep Iraq together, and it may not get rid of jihadist terrorism emanating from Iraq, but it’s as close as we’ll get to victory, and allows us withdrawal with honor. Let’s take it.

That is solid advice. But, of course, he won’t be able to convincingly say that he ended the war in accord with his objectives because of the kind of bullshit paranoid apocalyptic language being used by the likes of Dick Cheney, Richard Perle, Michael Ledeen, and a host of right-wing bloggers. By repeatedly mischaracterizing the resistance in Iraq as primarily a foreign, jihadist, and al Qaeda-affiliated resistance, they have pretty much precluded the possibility of a pullout being spun as any kind of victory whatsoever.

No matter, it’s never too late to do the best thing available at the time. And, when Maliki asks us to provide a timetable to leave Iraq, we should give him what he wants. A failure to do so will only make matters worse. And Democrats should not make a stink about the proposed amnesty for insurgents. Yeah, we could score political points, but we if we need to help Bush save a little face in order to get him to accede to our desire for a timetable, then we should be gracious.

The only question remaining is, does Maliki have a preference between Kerry’s and Levin’s proposals?