George W Bush, Iraq war originator, and Hillary Rodham Clinton, Iraq war supporter, both want you to believe that they have realistic approaches to the conflict in Iraq.
But do they? Are Bush or Clinton really facing the facts as they are on the ground?
The number-one fact on the ground in Iraq - the elephant in the room that Gen George Casey and Congressman John Murtha have (with their hair on fire) pointed to - is that the massive presence of US forces in Iraq is itself the gasoline fueling an insurgency we have not been able to extinguish with 150,000 US troops.
And there are other facts on the ground to sober a realist.
Fact: 2,129 US soldiers have died in the conflict, with 16 killed in the last three days.
Fact: An additional 15,000-plus US soldiers have been wounded, many grievously.
Fact: Between 30,000 and 100,000 Iraqis, the majority of them noncombatants, have perished.
Fact: There is no end in sight to the violence.
Ignoring these facts, Bush talks of ultimate victory yet still fails to actually define it. Instead, he talks in sound bites, spouting the usual administration nonsense about "US troops standing down when Iraqi troops stand up."
In reality, the snail's pace of growth in Iraqi security capabilities assures that the day Iraqis will be able to stand up will be in the distant future (well beyond 2006, certainly, and probably beyond 2008).
Sen Clinton, for her part, talks of bringing stability to a country that we have destabilized and fractured. She says it's our moral responsibility, as well as in our national interest, to fix what we have broken. True. But she too fails to detail how the US is supposed to achieve a positive outcome out of the mess it has made.
It is Gen Casey and Congressman Murtha (the latter speaking for active-duty military leaders unable to speak publicly for themselves) who are the persuasive realists. Not George W Bush. Not Hillary R Clinton.
So what's to be done? a) Stay the course and continue to pretend the December elections will somehow lead to a free, democratic, independent and secular Iraq? b) Suspend offensive operations and withdraw to the periphery, embed advisors with Iraqi units, support Iraqi government forces with air power and hope for the best? c) Say we're standing firm while actually drawing down force levels and doing a modified cut and run - in this case a trim and walk?
The rhetoric coming out of the mouths of Bush and Clinton has more to do with politics than strategy or reality. And is it any wonder?
No politician ever succeeded by being honest with the people about a failed war.
National Debunker