Q for the conservatives: what is more important, re: Iraq?

Bookmark (god, I'm boring...)

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Nimh,

I agree with your observations with respect to Uzbekistan, but note that this aspect of the "problem" is much more the concern of Russia and China than the U.S.

The basic issue here is that the complexity of the strategic situation with its many coupled regional, political, economic and social problems, each presenting a different set of potential hazards, is far greater than the set of actions the United States or any of the Western powers have available to deal with them. We have a finite and small set of options available to us and many of them are binary.

In a mathematical sense the solution space does not provide enough degrees of freedom with which to optimize the solution with respect to all of the various challenges. The problem is highly non-linear, parabolic, and unbounded, This is not an elliptical problem defined by a linear operator and well defined boundary conditions - it does not permit a closed form solution. One must find tolerable solutions that in some aggregate sense minimize the unresolved aspects of the general problem and refine it as the situation unfolds. You are asking for simple one-dimensional cause - effect relationships, which simply do not exist in the real world. Nothing remarkable in this - it is a common element of strategy in business, complex game theory and national strategy as well.

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I am not quite sure I follow all you are saying, George, but how come you tell me that often enough, the US (or any country) has "a finite and small set of options available to us and many of them are binary", yet when I bring up such a binary set of options and ask you (folks) about it, you say it is too illusionary a one-dimensional representation of affairs to address?

Although I agree that the whole of a context surrounding a country's affairs can include many dimensions beyond the one I'm sketching here, this is one - and I think any government often enough has to simply make a choice like the one I outlined.

Eg: shall we support the Uzbek opposition the way we did the Ukrainian and openly castigate Karimov's regime for its blatant violation of human rights, therewith however losing a valuable strategic asset in Central Asia (the military facilities Karimov offers us) and potentially opening the can of worms of what kind of regime might follow his? Or shall we be discrete in our criticisms of torture, summary imprisonment etc., maintain our financial aid of Uzbekistan at its past levels, and praise him in public as a valuable ally in the fight against terrorism, and thus avoid such problems (but becoming complicit to his dictatorial regime)?

These are choices that governments make ever so often. You can vary a bit by picking and choosing a mix of what I mentioned - occasionally castigating Karimov's regime at international summits, for example, but refraining from supporting the opposition and simultaneously praising him as a valuable ally against Islamist terrorism - and hope that this way, he'll still offer you the facilities even while you've nominally fulfilled your humanitarian duty in diplomacy. Like I said in my opening post, it doesn't need to be an either/or question, you can set your criteria at a pragmatic/opportunistic point midway. But these decisions still come up, for the US government as for any other, often enough - and they are taken, often in all too "binary" terms. Condemn the election fraud or let it pass? Host the controversial opposition leader in exile in your country or not? Finite options, indeed - reasonable dilemmas to want someone's opinion about.

In that sense, I am asking straightforward enough questions here. Without pretending it's necessarily an all-or-nothing situation, there's still choices to be faced that can not indefinitively be dismissed with the invocation that what we want, of course, is both - to have a democracy in Iraq that will be friendly to the US. What if, two years from now, with none of the other regimes in the Middle East changed, a newly and freely elected Iraqi government insists you leave? Leaving none of the military bases that the US government, I understand, is currently pencilling in for the long-term Iraq future? Would you concede or rebuff?

What if elections are scheduled, but the likely winner, according to the polls, is the party that insists you'll leave, instantly - together with your oil companies, since the party in question intends to renationalise all exploitation of its oil fields? Will you advise or pressure the Iraqi powers-that-be to curtail democracy for the moment, in order to avoid that scenario? These are none too hypothetical, schematic scenarios - they can be lifted out of any number of historical US foreign policy episodes of the none too distant past ...

Considering the claim that is widely asserted that the bottom line of this invasion is simply about bringing democracy to Iraq, I think it's fair enough to want to gauge just how far that commitment to democracy goes ... just where the turning point between democracy and national interest lies. It helps those in other countries to inform a reasoned estimation of the expected costs and benefits of the US invasion ...

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Nimh,

It is relatively easy to pose an endless string of hypothetical questions: much harder to answer them honestly and truthfully. Moreover, given the fact that the hypothesis almost never provides a sufficient description of the situation, the act of attempting to answer it is a fool's errand - one must make unstated assumptions to select any particular solution, which are then squeezed out in the next hypothesis. Bottom line - you have not even begun to describe the situation in the detail that would be readily available to the decision-makers involved and you haven't even attempted to describe the surrounding situation. You have not posed a question that has a real answer.

The unhappy fact is that political discourse in the United States, and in other democratic countries is trivialized by the media, commentators and the politicians themselves. Alternatives are painted in unrealistic shades of black and white. This is a more or less permanent fact of democratic politics. I believe that, in part, your desire for simple, one-dimensional comparisons and cause-effect relations may be related to this. There is no merit in assigning the limitations of democratic political rhetoric to serious strategic thought. (The history of the lead in to WWII provides several excellent illustrations of this point.)

There are many, related reasons for our intervention in Iraq. Getting rid of a particularly dangerous tyrant was one of them. Establishing a non-theocratic government, with sufficient public freedoms and some democratic forms, in the center of the region at a critical time in its political evolution was another. Both contribute to reducing the short term danger from Islamist terrorists, and to possibly establishing in the long-term a third way for the Moslem countries of the former Ottoman Empire - one that is neither Islamist and theocratic nor authoritarian and dictatorial. The frequently stated position of the Bush administration is that such a government will be less likely to support, harbor, or aid terrorism, and more likely to join the community of nations in cooperative economic and political relationships. No one has suggested that such a government would always agree with us or (to use your example) want our military forces on its soil. Instead we have said that a much better relationship is likely. There is good reason to believe this is true.

How could I (or anyone) truthfully and accurately answer your question regarding what we would do if a democratically elected government in Iraq decided to expel U.S. forces and nationalize the oil fields? (Is this a cute way to gin up a comparison with Iran in 1953?)

It is noteworthy that, at a particularly dangerous moment in the Cold War, France chose to expel the military forces of the Allies that liberated it in WWII, placing NATO ground forces at a serious strategic disadvantage in the face of what then were very strong, superior Soviet mobile forces along the then "iron curtain". We quickly complied.

I think it a bit unfair to the Iraqis at this early stage to suggest that they might be as perfidious as the French.

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georgeob1 wrote:

It is relatively easy to pose an endless string of hypothetical questions: much harder to answer them honestly and truthfully. Moreover, given the fact that the hypothesis almost never provides a sufficient description of the situation, the act of attempting to answer it is a fool's errand - one must make unstated assumptions to select any particular solution, which are then squeezed out in the next hypothesis. Bottom line - you have not even begun to describe the situation in the detail that would be readily available to the decision-makers involved and you haven't even attempted to describe the surrounding situation. You have not posed a question that has a real answer.

I think it is fair enough to, when a government - or a group of people espousing a certain position, say the A2K conservatives - propose a course of action several possible or likely consequences of which can easily be foreseen or described, ask them what they will/would do when such situations do indeed actually arise. It won't do to propose a course of action yet refuse to answer the question of what you will do when this or that probable enough outcome materialises, saying, well we will only know about that when we get there, who knows, too complicated to answer now. Thats asking for a carte blanche.

Some conservatives here have argued insistently that the war is about spreading democracy, while at the same time implying that some development or other that might proceed from actual democratic elections and decision-making in Iraq cant of course be tolerated. I think its fair enough, then, to ask them to play open card and outline what they, in any case, will or won't accept in terms of democracy in Iraq and its possible consequences. It is only with that information in hand that we can fairly evaluate the justification of "bringing democracy" they bring to bear on the question of the Iraq war.

In previous eras when the US proposed the "spreading democracy" card, apart from the success story of post-war Western Europe, results have been the very opposite of what the rhetorics had advertized, and the strategies actually applied once action was undertaken pushed countries away, rather than toward democracy. Perhaps the neoconservative generation sincerely wants to take a different tack from its traditional predecessors. There is only one way to cut to the chase and separate mere rhetorics from the willingness to take the strategically disadvantageous with the strategically advantageous once the principled choice for democratisation has been taken. That's by proposing an all too specific situation where a choice will actually need to be made. Are you really gonna stick to your espoused principles even when it's gonna hurt your strategic interests, or will the rhetoric of bringing democracy turn out again to be mere packaging for the exclusive pursuit of national interest, to be dumped or reversed as soon as that's more convenient?

You will have noticed that the neoconservative argument towards the allies in Europe and elsewhere is that, now the UN has (allegedly) proven itself incapable of effectively upholding and furthering the cause for democratisation and against totalitarian excess, we should accept for now a self-assigned authority of the US in enforcing it. Re: Bill's pleas for an American globocop. Basically: you can safely allow us our self-assigned right to undertake military intervention whereever we consider necessary, because we will undertake it for the good cause that will be for all our benefit. They are asking us to trust them. In that case, I think we have a right to know the answer to the above question. Where's the beef? What will you actually do when the principles you're claiming you will be upholding in all of our name, now the UN is proven unable to do so, get to be in conflict with your traditional national interest?

Moishe all but implied that the "bringing democracy" argument is a "false pretense" to a certain extent - a little white lie for the cause he feels the US does need to fight. Just a way to haul aboard those who need to be hauled aboard. Others here in this thread have been surprisingly more consistent, something I find hopeful.

I would also like to point out that several of the main questions I asked in this thread do not depend on the immensely complex interplay of contexts you project, claiming to thus not possibly be able to answer. There's some straightforward questions there, asking merely about your feeling, for example - asking what you personally would consider a win or a loss, to have been worth it or not worth it. If Iraq becomes a democracy, but the democratically elected government turns out to be hostile to the US, would America have won or lost this war, in your opinion? The answer to that question is not about analysing data and defining an objective truth - just about what you're in it for, personally.

I observe that other conservative posters have found no problems in answering it. You answer only indirectly, perhaps because your position is less likely to elicit approval from the peanut gallery, defining criteria of success in a subordinate clause as "sufficient public freedoms and some democratic forms". I suppose that means that the target you define as the central one - the "danger from Islamist terrorists" - can be used as an argument for limiting democracy in Iraq to "some democratic forms" without feeling that the mission has in any way been compromised.

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Okay.
Interesting questions.
(Absent vis a vis the Sabbath. G-d calls. I stay.)

A democratically elected government in Iraq is preferable to a US imposed government.
A democratically elected government in Iraq that is hostile towards the US is not preferable, but nor is it logically probable.
The government will be composed of three main factions - all of which have a huge interest in having the US support them.
The Shia majority will rule. They have been butchered by the Sunni minority and the Saudis for well over two hundred years. The Iranians are currently attacking them also. If they are hostile towards the US (and kick us out) they will lose power to either the Iranian Islamofascists or the Sunni Islamofascists. This is possible, but doubtful.
The Sunni Kurds: They are strong; they need a country; they want power; they need the US.
The Iraqi Sunnis that are not Islamofascists: There is no one to protect them except a government towards which the US is friendly. Otherwise, they are going to be dead.

Historically, the Iraqis should have no problems being friendly towards the US. As both the right and the left are so fond of telling us, most Muslims are not Islamic fascist death cultists.
There is no reason that a government that is supported in its war against Islamofascism should not be friendly towards the US.
More later...

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I'll take your points one at a time.

nimh wrote:

I think it is fair enough to, when a government - or a group of people espousing a certain position, say the A2K conservatives - propose a course of action several possible or likely consequences of which can easily be foreseen or described, ask them what they will/would do when such situations do indeed actually arise. It won't do to propose a course of action yet refuse to answer the question of what you will do when this or that probable enough outcome materialises, saying, well we will only know about that when we get there, who knows, too complicated to answer now. Thats asking for a carte blanche.

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I generally agree with Moishe's hierarchy of points above. However, I believe that it is both more than Nimh's question deserves, and unlikely to persuade one who, himself, accepts no complimentary burden of argument. It is noteworthy that Moishe and I disagree strongly about several fundamental issues surrounding the Arab/Israeli conflict, and yet we both take what are generally regarded as "conservative" views of history and the contemporary political scene.

nimh wrote:

Some conservatives here have argued insistently that the war is about spreading democracy, while at the same time implying that some development or other that might proceed from actual democratic elections and decision-making in Iraq cant of course be tolerated. I think its fair enough, then, to ask them to play open card and outline what they, in any case, will or won't accept in terms of democracy in Iraq and its possible consequences. It is only with that information in hand that we can fairly evaluate the justification of "bringing democracy" they bring to bear on the question of the Iraq war.

In previous eras when the US proposed the "spreading democracy" card, apart from the success story of post-war Western Europe, results have been the very opposite of what the rhetorics had advertized, and the strategies actually applied once action was undertaken pushed countries away, rather than toward democracy. Perhaps the neoconservative generation sincerely wants to take a different tack from its traditional predecessors. There is only one way to cut to the chase and separate mere rhetorics from the willingness to take the strategically disadvantageous with the strategically advantageous once the principled choice for democratisation has been taken. That's by proposing an all too specific situation where a choice will actually need to be made. Are you really gonna stick to your espoused principles even when it's gonna hurt your strategic interests, or will the rhetoric of bringing democracy turn out again to be mere packaging for the exclusive pursuit of national interest, to be dumped or reversed as soon as that's more convenient?

As I have said, removing an authoritarian tyrant who had already proven himself to be dangerous to the region, and replacing him with a government more tuned to the popular will in Iraq and with some elements of democracy in it, was one of several, coupled reasons for our intervention in Iraq. It is neither truthful nor accurate to say the war "was all about planting democracy in Iraq". The same goes for our actions during the Cold War, although here the conflict was indeed centered on such political questions - at least in the minds of some on both sides. After WWII we found ourselves the chief opponent of an expansionist Soviet Empire, which employed a novel combination of Communist/Social Democrat revolutionary politics and proven, Old World imperialism in an obvious pursuit of continued expansion. It was a compelling and direct threat to the continued freedom and prosperity of our Western European Allies and ourselves. We opposed it successfully and won a major historical struggle with less death and destruction than the earlier, European versions of this phenomenon.

While we were indeed champions of democracy and free enterprise as opposed to totalitarian, authoritarian, rule with centrally planned (and incompetent) economies, we were not attempting to impose our political forms on others in the same way the Soviets were theirs. There were times and places in this long struggle in which the differences narrowed a good deal, but it would be a lie to deny them.

I don't think it is possible to "impose democracy" on a nation. At best one can help create the conditions in which the seed might be planted and grow. History has repeatedly demonstrated the truth of this proposition, and as well the toughness and durability of freedom and democracy, once established. I don't think you can cite a single example in the world in which U.S. opposition to Soviet expansion produced the opposite effect.

No doubt you will protest citing the Contras in Nicaragua and perhaps Pinochet in Chile. My response is, simply consider the results. Even here I believe we did better than our European critics did in their colonial pasts. Perhaps you would like to explain to us the benevolence of Dutch rule in Indonesia.

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nimh wrote:

You will have noticed that the neoconservative argument towards the allies in Europe and elsewhere is that, now the UN has (allegedly) proven itself incapable of effectively upholding and furthering the cause for democratisation and against totalitarian excess, we should accept for now a self-assigned authority of the US in enforcing it. Re: Bill's pleas for an American globocop. Basically: you can safely allow us our self-assigned right to undertake military intervention whereever we consider necessary, because we will undertake it for the good cause that will be for all our benefit. They are asking us to trust them. In that case, I think we have a right to know the answer to the above question. Where's the beef? What will you actually do when the principles you're claiming you will be upholding in all of our name, now the UN is proven unable to do so, get to be in conflict with your traditional national interest?

Moishe all but implied that the "bringing democracy" argument is a "false pretense" to a certain extent - a little white lie for the cause he feels the US does need to fight. Just a way to haul aboard those who need to be hauled aboard. Others here in this thread have been surprisingly more consistent, something I find hopeful.

I would also like to point out that several of the main questions I asked in this thread do not depend on the immensely complex interplay of contexts you project, claiming to thus not possibly be able to answer. There's some straightforward questions there, asking merely about your feeling, for example - asking what you personally would consider a win or a loss, to have been worth it or not worth it. If Iraq becomes a democracy, but the democratically elected government turns out to be hostile to the US, would America have won or lost this war, in your opinion? The answer to that question is not about analysing data and defining an objective truth - just about what you're in it for, personally.

I observe that other conservative posters have found no problems in answering it. You answer only indirectly, perhaps because your position is less likely to elicit approval from the peanut gallery, defining criteria of success in a subordinate clause as "sufficient public freedoms and some democratic forms". I suppose that means that the target you define as the central one - the "danger from Islamist terrorists" - can be used as an argument for limiting democracy in Iraq to "some democratic forms" without feeling that the mission has in any way been compromised.

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Okay, now that I have a few more seconds...

Quote:

Moishe all but implied that the "bringing democracy" argument is a "false pretense" to a certain extent - a little white lie for the cause he feels the US does need to fight. Just a way to haul aboard those who need to be hauled aboard. Others here in this thread have been surprisingly more consistent, something I find hopeful.

I apologize for my unspecific answer which led to the above assumption.
I was thinking of "WMD's" when I was referring to possible "false pretenses." I believe that overthrowing Saddam and establishing a democratic government were the reasons we went into Iraq. I also believe that everyone thought that Saddam had WMD's (including Europe and the UN), but that that was simply a point that "we could all agree upon" to invade Iraq in order to get rid of Saddam and establish a democracy (which, ideally, will be friendly towards the US).
The agreement with all nations in the world that Saddam had WMD's was the "little white lie" to haul everyone on board. It didn't pan out, because we haven't found any yet.
However, the true purpose of invasion was to overthrow Saddam's fascist regime and establish a democracy.
This was and is a vital strategic step in the war against Islamic fascist death cults.
Of all of the nations that promote Islamofascism, Iraq is best situated to change things:
Saddam was an Insane bloodthirsty dictator ala Idi Amin or Pol Pot. The man everyone can agree to hate, except for perhaps the French...
Two subject populations (Kurdish and Shia) that could not overthrow the madman without outside help;
Situated smack between Islamofascist Saudi Arabia, Islamofacist Syria and Islamofascist Iran, thereby posing a border threat to each (as they all do to Iraq.)

If this strategy works and Iraq stabilizes into a US friendly democracy, these other countrie will also change. If there is violent disruption by Islamofascist death cults while they change, Iraq will be in an ideal position to support moderate democratic elements.

If this strategy fails and Iraq ends up in perpetual chaos or in a democratically elected Islamofascist regime hostile towards the US, then we will indeed be up the creek....
But, I don't believe that this will happen because I see it eventually leading to large, radioactive holes where Mecca and Tehran once were...
That is the logical conclusion to letting Islamic fascist death cultists have their way. Sooner or later, they will commit an act so heinous, supported by their particular Islamo fasicst death cult government, that the only possible response is to destroy them utterly.
As I do not believe that most Muslims or Iraqis are anywhere near as stupid as bin Laden and Zaqarwi seem to believe they are; and that the Arab culture and therefore Islam, respect strength; I believe that the majority of Muslims, given the chance, such as in Iraq, will choose peace, strength, power, stability and freedom over chaos, death, destruction, instability, and slavery.

And, based on the totally biased belief system that orders my daily life, I also believe that Iraq will either install somehow or simply establish friendly relations with Israel somwhere around February 23rd or 24th or March 25th or 26th of this year, 2005.
So let it be written. So let it be done. :wink:

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georgeob1 wrote:

[The intervention in Iraq will have many bad side effects, most already visible. However, I find it exceedingly unlikely that the net effect of acting would be worse than that of not acting.

I don't understand why.

This is fast shaping up to be one of the most counterproductive efforts ever undertaken by any country at any time.

Quote:

On the contrary, I believe significant improvements are highly likely.

Well you can "believe" that you can train an elephant to walk a tightrope stretched across the Grand Canyon if you want...but the chances of significant "improvement" seem to be lessening every day (except in the eyes of people determined to support this incompetent administration at any cost)...and the chances of significant increased disruption and increased terrorism have become "highly likely."

Quote:

However, history doesn't reveal its alternatives - we, neither of us, can really know it.

Agreed...but one should still attempt to learn something from recent history. This fiasco is Vietnam revisited. It is stupidity and arrogance...incarnate.

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georgeob1 wrote:

[The intervention in Iraq will have many bad side effects, most already visible. However, I find it exceedingly unlikely that the net effect of acting would be worse than that of not acting.

I don't understand why.

This is fast shaping up to be one of the most counterproductive efforts ever undertaken by any country at any time.

Quote:

On the contrary, I believe significant improvements are highly likely.

Well you can "believe" that you can train an elephant to walk a tightrope stretched across the Grand Canyon if you want...but the chances of significant "improvement" seem to be lessening every day (except in the eyes of people determined to support this incompetent administration at any cost)...and the chances of significant increased disruption and increased terrorism have become "highly likely."

Quote:

However, history doesn't reveal its alternatives - we, neither of us, can really know it.

Agreed...but one should still attempt to learn something from recent history. This fiasco is Vietnam revisited. It is stupidity and arrogance...incarnate.

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Moishe has put forward a rational case for our intervention, with which I agree in most particulars. It would be interesting to read a similarly meaningful and self-consistent argument from those who oppose it.
I don't mean mere empty shouting as in the posts above, I would like to see some real argument with rational structure and historical context.

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georgeob1 wrote:

Moishe has put forward a rational case for our intervention, with which I agree in most particulars. It would be interesting to read a similarly meaningful and self-consistent argument from those who oppose it.
I don't mean mere empty shouting as in the posts above, I would like to see some real argument with rational structure and historical context.

Sounds like you want to play games rather than hear the truth, George.

It doesn't take much in the way of "rational structure and historical context"...to see this incredible screw up for what it is.

You want a lot of smoke screen around so you can avoid looking at this disaster...this blight on the honor and reputation of our Republic...for what it is...a national disgrace dressed up to look like a reasonable reaction to terrorism.

Ahhh, what the hell. There are people who will play your silly game...so all is not lost for you.

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Frank wrote:

Quote:

But...I ain't no conservative...and I'm gonna butt out.

I knew you couldn't do it!

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Idaho wrote:

Frank wrote:

Quote:
But...I ain't no conservative...and I'm gonna butt out.

I knew you couldn't do it!

Ooops. Is that which thread this is???

I lost track!

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Frank Apisa wrote:

georgeob1 wrote:
[The intervention in Iraq will have many bad side effects, most already visible. However, I find it exceedingly unlikely that the net effect of acting would be worse than that of not acting.

I don't understand why.

This is fast shaping up to be one of the most counterproductive efforts ever undertaken by any country at any time.

Frank, your saturnine responses notwithstanding, you really believe your blather?
Offhand, Soviets in Afghanistan (resulting, utimately, in the total destruction of the Soviet Union); French in Indochina (which might be a good comparison, if you wish to explore it); and Argentina in the Falklands all might be a bit more counterproductive... No?

Quote:
On the contrary, I believe significant improvements are highly likely.

Well you can "believe" that you can train an elephant to walk a tightrope stretched across the Grand Canyon if you want...but the chances of significant "improvement" seem to be lessening every day (except in the eyes of people determined to support this incompetent administration at any cost)...and the chances of significant increased disruption and increased terrorism have become "highly likely."

Improvements = stable government in Iraq.
Terrorism is a dead end, literally, Frank. It does not stablilize anything, ever. It never has and never will. Therefore, your surmise is incorrect.
Sooner or later Iraq will indeed stabilize. And it will crush the terrorists.
The hoped for aim is that it will not be a new Saddam or Khomeini that crushes the terrorists. But they will be crushed, sooner or later.

Quote:
However, history doesn't reveal its alternatives - we, neither of us, can really know it.

Agreed...but one should still attempt to learn something from recent history. This fiasco is Vietnam revisited. It is stupidity and arrogance...incarnate.

Silly. Uniformed.
This is not Vietnam. No relationship.
However, one might compare it to French Indochina.
Worth exploring, possibly.....
Hmmm?

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Moishe3rd wrote:

Silly. Uniformed.
This is not Vietnam. No relationship.
However, one might compare it to French Indochina.
Worth exploring, possibly.....
Hmmm?

Yeah, yer right.

Vietnam was jungle.

This is desert.

But if you think the situation for the United States and its fighting forces is appreciably different...you are kidding yourself.

This is Vietnam for the U.S.....all over again.

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From today's New York Times

January 10, 2005
WASHINGTON MEMO
Hot Topic: How U.S. Might Disengage in Iraq
By DAVID E. SANGER and ERIC SCHMITT

WASHINGTON, Jan. 9 - Three weeks before the election in Iraq, conversation has started bubbling up in Congress, in the Pentagon and some days even in the White House about when and how American forces might begin to disengage in Iraq.

So far it is mostly talk, not planning. The only thing resembling a formal map to the exit door is a series of Pentagon contingency plans for events after the Jan. 30 elections. But a senior administration official warned over the weekend against reading too much into that, saying "the Pentagon has plans for everything," from the outbreak of war in Korea to relief missions in Africa.

The rumblings about disengagement have grown distinctly louder as members of Congress return from their districts after the winter recess, and as military officers try to game out how Sunni Arabs and Shiites might react to the election results. The annual drafting of the budget is a reminder that the American presence in Iraq is costing nearly $4.5 billion a month and putting huge strains on the military. And White House officials contemplate the political costs of a second term possibly dominated by a nightly accounting of continuing casualties.

By all accounts, President Bush has not joined the conversation about disengagement so far, though a few senior members of his national security team have.

A senior administration official said in an interview this weekend that Mr. Bush still intended to stick to his plan, refining his strategy of training Iraqis to take over security duties from Americans, but not wavering from his promise to stay until the job is done. "We are not in the business of trying to float timetables," the official insisted. "The only metric we have is when we can turn more and more over to local forces."

But all over Washington, there is talk about new ways to define when the mission is accomplished - not to cut and run, but not to linger, either. Several administration officials acknowledge that Mr. Bush will face crucial decisions soon after Jan. 30, when it should become clearer whether the election has resulted in more stability or more insurgency.

Already, the president found himself in a rare public argument last week with one of his father's closest friends and advisers, Brent Scowcroft, the former national security adviser. The election "won't be a promising transformation, and it has great potential for deepening the conflict," Mr. Scowcroft declared Thursday, adding, "We may be seeing incipient civil war at this time."

Mr. Scowcroft said the situation in Iraq raised the fundamental question of "whether we get out now." He urged Mr. Bush to tell the Europeans on a trip to Europe next month: "I can't keep the American people doing this alone. And what do you think would happen if we pulled American troops out right now?"

In short, he was suggesting that Mr. Bush raise the specter that Iraq could collapse without a major foreign presence - exactly the rationale the administration has used for its current policy.

Mr. Bush, asked Friday whether he shared Mr. Scowcroft's concerns about "an incipient civil war," shot back, "Quite the opposite."

"I think elections will be such an incredibly hopeful experience for the Iraqi people," he said.

But the president's optimism is in sharp contrast, some administration insiders say, to some conversations in the White House Situation Room, the Pentagon and Congress. For the first time, there are questions about whether it is politically possible to wait until the Iraqi forces are adequately trained before pressure to start bringing back American troops becomes overwhelming.

Some senators are now openly declaring that Iraqi military and police units are not up to the job.

Senator John W. Warner, the Virginia Republican who heads the Armed Services Committee, said last week after meeting with top Pentagon officials, "In my judgment, a great deal of work needs to be done to achieve the level of forces that will allow our country and other members of the coalition to reduce force levels."

Before the recess, other Republican senators, including Chuck Hagel of Nebraska and John McCain of Arizona, voiced skepticism about the Iraq policy. And on "Fox News Sunday," Newt Gingrich, former speaker of the House, said "we are now digging ourselves out of a hole" in Iraq.

Few in Washington missed the significance of Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld's decision last week to send a retired four-star general, Gary E. Luck, to Iraq to assess military operations and Iraqi security forces. It was driven, administration officials say, by an urgent need to determine what has gone wrong with the training of Iraqi troops.

In an interview with a Dallas radio station last week, Mr. Rumsfeld said he did not want to send more American troops to Iraq "because then we'd look more and more like an occupying force."

In classified strategy sessions, other administration officials say they are asking whether the sheer size of the American force, now 150,000 troops, is fueling the insurgency.

One possibility quietly discussed inside the administration is whether the new Iraqi government might ask the United States forces to begin to leave - what one senior State Department official calls "the Philippine option," a reference to when the Philippines asked American forces to pull out a decade ago.

Few officials will talk publicly about that possibility. But in a speech on Oct. 8, Lt. Gen. James T. Conway, who had just completed a tour as commander of all marines in Iraq, said, "I believe there will be elections in Iraq in January, and I suspect very shortly afterward you will start to see a reduction in U.S. forces - not because U.S. planners will seek it, rather because the Iraqis will demand it."

General Conway, who is now the director of operations for the military's Joint Staff, was traveling this weekend, and it could not be determined if he still stood by his comments.

Even if the new government wants the American forces to remain, some officials say there is a growing undercurrent of talk about whether to press the Iraqis to take responsibility for their own defense by giving them a rough timetable for gradual American withdrawal.

"It's clear to everyone that this has to become an Iraqi show, and it has to happen this year," a senior administration official said.

Military officers say actual security conditions, not schedules, will dictate any American troop reductions.

"It's truly hard to say what anyone might regard as a realistic date," one general in Iraq said in an e-mail interview on Saturday.

Even as military planners at the Pentagon and in the Middle East draft possible withdrawal schedules, other Pentagon officials and retired officers are projecting long American troop commitments in Iraq.

Army officials here are still drawing up plans to sustain future rotations of troops at today's levels, plans that can be adapted, they said.

Gen. Tommy R. Franks, who commanded the invasion of Iraq, said on the NBC News program "Today" on Dec. 9: "One has to think about the numbers. I think we will be engaged with our military in Iraq for, perhaps, 3, 5, perhaps 10 years."

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I believe that anyone who has seen my posts since I have been here will grant that I am a conservative about most things. To me, the primary criterion for success was to accomplish the primary mission. To me, the primary mission was to make sure that Iraq had no WMD and no WMD programs, whether by removing them or verifying that they weren't there. This is why I was in favor of an invasion long before president Bush came on the scene. This has pretty much already been accomplished. Naturally, the re-emergence of a government that would again begin creating WMD, and which was of such a character that the WMD might be used against us, would reverse this success, although at least we would strongly suspect that they were starting from a zero WMD state.

The larger goal is to continue to assure that some nations, perceived as creating WMD that may well be used in our cities, do not develop or possess them. This was one piece of that larger effort.

Replacing Iraq's former dictatorship with a representative democracy is merely something that is nice to do while in the neighborhood, and definitely secondary. However, I believe that the people of Iraq must be given complete freedom to elect any government of their choosing. Of course, if they choose a government actively hostile to ours, we will have to deal with it.

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Q for the conservatives: what is more important, re: Iraq?

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