I just got done watching Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell and others testify before the Senate Armed Services Committee. There is no transcript available yet. McConnell is a lot more candid than most of the Bush appointees we’ve come to know and loathe. For example, he was asked by Evan Bayh about the situation facing the Iraqi government. McConnell said that the Iraqi government “faces an almost impossible situation.”

Bayh smartly followed up by asking, “If the Iraqi government faces an almost impossible situation, then what does that say about our mission?”

You can imagine what McConnell’s answer was. He was trapped. And he basically acknowledged that our position in nearly hopeless.

Lindsey Graham is a lawyer and a pretty good one. He’s got a case he keeps trying to win and he uses these hearings to ask narrowly crafted leading questions that result in deeply misleading conclusions.

At its most basic level he wants to make the case that we can’t stop fighting in Iraq. First he relies on Zawahiri documents of dubious authenticity. He uses them to argue that the civil war in Iraq is part of al-Qaeda’s plan and that therefore we can’t retreat in the face of it. The intelligence officers were reluctant to grant this point, noting that there had been some dissent from al-Qaeda in Pakistan about Zarqawi’s plan to target Shi’ites. Graham moved on to another point. He asked whether it was not al-Qaeda’s strategy to take over Iraq. Again, the intelligence officers didn’t really think it was al-Qaeda’s strategy. Graham then asked whether al-Qaeda wouldn’t just follow us to Kuwait if we retreated there. Again, McConnell said he felt it was very unlikely.

At this point Graham became exasperated. His talking points weren’t really working out. So, he asked if there was anyplace in the Middle East where we could station our troops that would be safe. The intelligence officers agreed that there was not any such place.

It seems to me that this kind of gets to the heart of the matter. If we want to be safe in the Middle East we need to change our policies and help broker a peace agreement in Paletine. If we don’t change our policies and get a peace agreement then we will be in a constant rearguard action as radicals gain power and look to attack us and our interests. We can’t merely buy everyone off and we can’t kill everyone.

The way I see it, we must throw Bush and Cheney out of office. Then we must come to grips with the real situation. And the real situation is that Iraq is going to be at war for a very long time and that it is going to suck in the Turks, the Saudis, and the Iranians. If we have a preferred outcome in this war, we ought to get busy figuring out what it is. But, more importantly, we need to realize that we’ve broken the equilibrium in the region and it can’t be put back together by us. It’s not at all clear what we could possibly do, and we certainly cannot afford to garrison Iraq.

The consequences of this are grave and uncertain. But they won’t be avoided. I understand why the Democrats are afraid to take ownership of this mess. But there is a three step program they can take. They need to force the President to withdraw, they need to impeach the President and Vice-President, and they need to make peace in Palestine their number one priority.

And al-Qaeda has virtually nothing to do with any of this. Nineteen hijackers are meaningless compared to much bigger issues like our relationships with Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Jordan, Israel, Egypt, Kuwait, and the Emirates. They may all want us to stay in Iraq and protect them from the mess we’ve made and an emboldened Iran. But we can’t afford it. They are going to have to help us come up with a back-up plan. And, somehow, I don’t think that backup plan is going to involve continuing to hold the hand of the Maliki government.

And then there are the Kurds. The poor Kurds. When will they ever learn not to rely on us?