Columnists Discuss U.S. Policy in Iraq

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• JIM LEHRER:

  Now, the analysis of Shields and Brooks, syndicated columnist Mark Shields, New York Times columnist David Brooks.

  David, that big political noise we hear is the coming of the Baker-Hamilton report on Iraq. Based on the leaks and anything else you know about it, what, in fact, is it going to say?

• DAVID BROOKS, Columnist, New York Times:

  Well, it charts some real ground, if you have George Bush over here who wants to keep fighting and keep going until we win, and Jack Murtha over here who wants to really have some sort of imminent withdrawal, it's sort of there in the middle.

  It's clearly heading toward the exits, but a very slow, gradual heading toward the exits. Maybe a goal of withdrawing our combat troops by '08, but that would still leave perhaps as many as 70,000 troops in Iraq in two years. And it's conditional.

  And so what it really is a very — it's a political compromise. And I think it has a lot of public support. My doubt is: What does it have to do with the reality on the ground in Iraq?

  Are we going to be able to keep withdrawing if the violence gets worse? If the violence gets worse and Iraqi politicians become more insecure, less likely to reach across sectarian lines, are we going to keep withdrawing? If the Iraqi army fails, doesn't show up for battles, are we going to keep withdrawing?

  So there's the whole Iraqi reality that I'm not sure how it applies to. The American reality, I completely understand. It's right there in the middle where a lot of people are.

• JIM LEHRER:

  Right there in the middle where it ought to be, Mark?

• MARK SHIELDS, Syndicated Columnist:

  Well, I think, Jim, that it shows the consensus is formed now, solidifying around an exit strategy. I think that's what…

• JIM LEHRER:

  The fight is just over the details?

• MARK SHIELDS:

  Yes, I think that's what it is. I think there are two other things at play here in the Baker thing. One is that it may be too little and too late, I mean, that events seem to be in the saddle right now, throughout the Middle East.

  When the best news out of the Middle East is from the Israeli-Palestinian sector, I mean, then you really know you're in trouble. There's been nothing but bad news there.

• JIM LEHRER:

  Including today, of course, as we just — Lebanon.

• MARK SHIELDS:

  Lebanon, earlier in the story.

• JIM LEHRER:

  Right.

• MARK SHIELDS:

  I mean, just everywhere you turn, and, I mean, the Iran-Syria card. I mean, they have a capacity for causing great trouble. We don't know if they can use their leverage for any good, and that will probably come with a price, and Lebanon may be the price.

  I mean, it seems to be that this is beyond the Baker-Hamilton. And I'm not minimizing its importance, the effort or the sincerity of the people involved.

  But unaddressed throughout this whole debate, by the Democrats as well as the Republicans, is: What is our moral obligation to the Iraqis and to the Iraqi nation?

  I mean, we went to war without world support, without the support of the world community, without a valid rationale for going to war, with either wrong assumptions or false pretenses. Having secured that victory, we were unprepared and made bad decisions. And we took a brutal, repressive, stable, secular Iraq and turned it into a brutal, unstable, theocratic, and unlivable Iraq. And what is — I mean, as we talk about leaving, what is our responsibility?