Iraq is FUBAR. Anyone with a shred of common sense should realize that with 140,000 US troops already in Iraq, an extra 20,000 aren't going to make much of a difference. If the US wants to win this war, instead of thinking of additions on the order of 10-20%, it has to be thinking on additions on the order of two, three, or more times US troops. But that is not possible with the current US volunteer military. Getting a US military presence sufficient to "pacify" Iraq—to win—would require reinstating the draft.

The Dems are too timid to take control of the war, something which is in their power since Congress makes the appropriations. Why can't they at least say this to the pResident: OK, you're the Decider. Well, decide this. If you want to prevail in Iraq, you will need to institute a draft. Well, which will it be: withdrawal, or instituting a draft? That is the real choice he is faced with. Anything less merely serves the function of transferring the responsibility for "losing Iraq" to the next president.

I was made to think along these lines by this blog, which gives a link to a power point presentation, called "Choosing Victory: A Plan for Success in Iraq", which Frederick Kagan presented recently at the AEI. This presentation finds it necessary to point out that "victory is possible" because "American resources are great: 300 million people, $12 trillion in GDP compared to 25 million Iraqis, $100 billion Iraqi GDP in a country the size of California". Obviously, when American policy makers find it necessary to point out that it is "possible" to prevail against a third world country because they have the largest economy in the world, whereas those who they are fighting with are just a third world country, things have fallen to a pathetic state indeed.

No one doubts that the US can "prevail" against the Iraqi people. The only question is what costs must the US be willing to undertake to prevail?

I am not a military expert. I don't know how to calculate what the size of the US occupying force must be to pacify the Iraqi resistance. So I will rely upon figures taken from this post by Juan Cole:

Both [Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz] were harsh to Gen. Shinseki for daring to suggest that pacifying Iraq would require 300,000 troops. Actually, this is already a low estimate. Calculating on the basis of the situation in the Balkans, some security specialists at the National Security Council estimated in spring of 2003 that 500,000 troops would be needed. In contrast, Rumsfeld forced the Joint Chiefs of Staff to accept an invasion force of only 100,000, which was good enough to win the war but not enough to secure the peace.

Thus, taking the figure of 500,000 as the number of troops required to secure the peace (which is significantly higher now, since things have severely degenerated since the initial invasion), what would be required to have a reasonable chance of success would not be a "surge" of an additional 20,000 troops, but an additional 360,000 troops. Since the US army is overstretched already as it is, there is no way to get that without a draft.

Democrats do not have to be defeatists. Yes, Iraq can still be conquered. But the reality is, that will require bringing back the draft. Is Bush willing to do that? If not, all this talk about not being willing to accept defeat is politics, and nothing more. The choice is his: withdrawal or reinstatement of the draft. He is the Decider.