Political Analysts Discuss Mideast Conflict, an Iraqi Civil War, U.S. Senate

RAY SUAREZ: Today on television screens around the world, vast crowds, the yellow Hezbollah banner waving in street after street, in Baghdad.

DAVID BROOKS: Right. Well, the Shias are on the march. And not only the Shias, the Sunni radicals are on the march. You know, to me one of the big things that's happened here is that we've had really an ascendant Islamist force going on for decades.

We did nothing for a long time; they ascended. We've tried to attack them, and we've suffered a setback in Iraq. Now we've basically suffered a setback in Lebanon. They're ascending.

We've tried doing nothing. We've tried fighting them. What's next? And that's just a long-term problem. So the news is bad because this crescent of Shiaism, but not only Shiaism, but radicalism, they're on the march, and they're still on the march.

RAY SUAREZ: Earlier this week, when Condoleezza Rice came back to the United States, she said one thing that can't be tolerated is a political party with an army, and referring to Hezbollah, but hasn't the United States tolerated political parties with armies in Iraq since the end of widespread combat operations?

MARK SHIELDS: Absolutely. There's no question. I mean, you've got your militia, I've got mine, he's got his. And that's been an acceptable status quo for the United States in Iraq. It's becoming less and less acceptable with each passing day as the country plummets into civil war, acknowledged, admitted civil war.

RAY SUAREZ: Before you say acknowledged and admitted, General Abizaid did back up his comments by saying that he didn't think that the rest of the slide was going to happen. He thought the Iraqi forces, as constituted, would be able to stop that from happening. But did that admission strike you as significant?

MARK SHIELDS: Yes, I mean, Ray, this is the first time that General Abizaid, to whom I have enormous respect and everybody I know does, as well, has testified since March and since the capture of Zarqawi, and the tone and the emphasis of pessimism in his remarks was so dramatic, so palpable.

I mean, that was a serious hearing yesterday. I mean, when John McCain, and John Warner, and Hillary Clinton, I mean, you're really confronted the reality. General Peter Pace, who's been criticized widely as being too close to the civilian bosses at the Pentagon, was very blunt, as well, using the term "civil war."

I mean, this is a long way away, Ray, from saying, "Well, you're not emphasizing the good stories. You're not supporting the troops, or it's political opposition at home." This is the reality. The reality of Iraq is the reality of Iraq, what is happening there. There have been 6,000 people killed in sectarian strife from May to July. I mean, if that isn't a civil war, I don't know what it qualifies as.

RAY SUAREZ: Are we inching toward having some sort of idea about time, about how to get out, that kind of thing?

DAVID BROOKS: Well, I think there's still the debate. I think there's clearly -- as Mark suggested, there's clearly a diminishing number of people who have any glimmer of optimism about Iraq. That number may have diminished to zero or maybe five people in the country; there are very few people who see any positive upside any time in the near future.

The question then becomes: Do we get out? And my colleague, Tom Friedman, who's, as we know, a major foreign policy writer in this country, wrote a column today saying maybe it's time to get out after one last stab of international conference.

I noticed many others and Tom Ricks, the Washington Post writer who wrote this book, "Fiasco," describing a lot of what's happened, says we should not get out. He says it would be shameful because we'd be abandoning people. And that's also a serious point of view, and he says we're going to have to be there in much diminished numbers to keep a lid on the civil war.

And so that's essentially the debate we're going to be happening. On the one hand, why should more Americans die for what is -- why should we baby-sit a civil war? On the other hand, if we get out, then it becomes much worse, drags on the region, and the consequences will be cataclysmic.

RAY SUAREZ: It's a debate, Mark, that Connecticut Democrats are certainly having this week.

MARK SHIELDS: It is, Ray. I think the debate is over in the country. It's close to being over. And we saw for the first time this week the Gallup poll that said 55 percent of Americans want to get out in the next 12 months or sooner.

I mean, the people and the voters are ahead of the politicians on this one. It's comparable to 1998, when the voters, when Congress was busy impeaching Bill Clinton, and the voters said, "No, you're not going to do that." The voters have decided this war is basically over. It's unwinnable, but there are people still dying and it bothers them.

Joe Lieberman, and none of us who covers politics is objective. We try to be fair. I admit up forward I like Joe Lieberman. I admire him enormously, with the civility he's brought to politics at a very uncivil time, for his great personal warmth. He's going to lose, and he'll probably lose big next Tuesday.

There are other reasons other than Iraq, but it will be interpreted as Iraq. It will be interpreted as a vote against the president, for a vote against Joe Lieberman's position on Iraq. I don't think it's totally accurate.

I think it's no accident that the four principle candidates for the Democratic nomination in 2004 all took the same position Joe Lieberman did, as supporters of that war resolution, John Edwards, John Kerry, Dick Gephardt, and Joe Lieberman himself. I just don't think that's the case. I think it contributes to it.

I don't think that he understood. I think he had lost touch with his -- out of touch with his voters, and I don't think he realized that the voters, after three years of this war and six years of George Bush, were really furious.

RAY SUAREZ: Does that put Democrats who voted for the war, David, on notice?

DAVID BROOKS: Well, a bit. First of all, I wouldn't say that Democratic primary voters in Connecticut in August are representative of the country. And it's clear Lieberman's going to lose, but I wouldn't read too much into it.

Nonetheless, a lot of people will read a lot if he does lose this primary, and especially if he loses it big. And the MoveOn crowd, the people who have been behind Lamont will nationally -- I think they'll be much more aggressive against Hillary Clinton. They'll be much more aggressive to get an anti-war Democrat to run against her and to be a serious candidate.

So you will see a shift in that direction, there's no question about it. And you may even begin to see a shift from some people who like Lieberman away from the Democratic Party. It's happened before. It's happened to me. And so I think what's happening here is the fervor on the Democratic Party is driving it but also driving people away.

RAY SUAREZ: Let's close with the Senate handling of the package handed them by the House of Representatives, where they were able to vote in an increase in the minimum wage and a big cut in the estate tax. It didn't pass.

DAVID BROOKS: Right, this was opportunism on stilts, taking two issues which should have been independent and marrying them together. The moderates wanted the minimum wage increase, which I have to say is a terrible way to help the poor because most people who make the minimum wage are middle-class teenagers. If you want to help the poor, raise the earned income tax credit or something like that.

But essentially they tried to take something that was in their hearts and take something the moderates wanted and marry them together, thinking you could get a majority. And, fortunately, actually, it fell. It fell short.

RAY SUAREZ: I'll have to check you on whether it's a majority of middle-class teenagers, but...

MARK SHIELDS: It isn't a majority of middle-class teenagers. I'm sorry. It is not. In fact, we're talking about as close to 40 percent being the principal earner in a household, the minimum wage.

That aside, Ray, the same Congress that somehow ideologically for 10 years has opposed any increase in the minimum wage because it would be harmful to them saw nothing wrong with taking nine raises themselves that raise their own salaries by $36,000. They didn't see that skewering the marketplace or fouling things up at all.

And tying a raise for the people making the least in this country, working below the poverty level, tying it to a tax break, a tax holiday in perpetuity for the 8,200 richest families in the country inheritance, it's beyond shameful.

Voters will see through this. They know the reality here, that Republicans don't believe in raising the minimum wage, don't care about it, and that they were forced into it. And I look for a straight up-or-down vote when it does come back, because I think Republican moderates who are fighting for their lives in the Northeast, in particular in the Midwest, know that they have to go back with something and they can't pretend on this any longer.

RAY SUAREZ: So this issue isn't neutralized? Really briefly.

DAVID BROOKS: Yes, I don't think it is. They want this clearly.

RAY SUAREZ: Fellows, have a good weekend.

DAVID BROOKS: Thank you.

MARK SHIELDS: Thank you.