Lost in the sparring between Matt and I over McCain’s mis-truths is the important question of what happens next in Iraq.

One thing that John McCain and Lindsay Graham (both in my Top 10 Washington Politicians BTW) have said repeatedly is

No one wants to talk about what happens after the troops leave.

[not a direct quote - searching for one]

with the implication that, whatever it is, it will be bad.

I am sure that everyone agrees that it will be bad - but what’s the alternative?

McCain always asks the question rhetorically when there is no one around to answer it. In the four years since the war started, the Republican Party have done everything they can to prevent people asking that question on the floor of the House or the Senate and now, when the new Democrat leadership tries to ask questions like this they are accused of treason, and cowardice and of cutting-and-running.

Why can’t they have a grown up debate about it?

Also, it’s disingenuous of McCain to keep repeating that the Democrats have no strategy except defeat when he knows that there is a broad spectrum of opinion within both parties - and there have been a number of alternate strategies from including the one from the Iraq Study Group which was supported by most mainstream Democrats until it was nullified by the President’s latest surge.
The debate so far has gone a lot like this:

• Let’s start a war
• Is that such a great idea?
• The Democrats are cowards
• We are succeeding in Iraq
• Are you sure?
• The Democrats support the enemy
• We need to increase the number of troops
• Will that work?
• The Democrats want us to fail

There is a great tradition in the English parliament of a free vote where the Members are not obliged to vote along party lines. Just once, I’d like to see the Senate have a sensible debate (it’s too much to expect from the House) where the Senators just discuss the options without name-calling.

Until then we are stuck with a temporary strategy (lets just increase the number of troops temporarily and hope things improve) that is not working, brinkmanship like arguing over whose fault it will be if the President vetoes the military spending bill and shenanigans like promising to cut off the funding in 120 days.

What will happen if we leave? What will happen if we stay? What are the alternatives? I don’t know - but I don’t think I’ve ever heard a Republican politician even attempt to answer those questions in good faith. Maybe the coming catastrophe over the spending bill will concentrate their minds a little - but I’m not holding my breath.

The New York Times reports on a congressional visit to Baghdad where it appears - to the senators and congressmen at least - that things are getting better:

…the politicians spoke of strolling through the marketplace, haggling with merchants and drinking tea. “The most deeply moving thing for me was to mix and mingle unfettered,” Mr. Pence said.

Mr. McCain was asked about a comment he made on a radio program in which he said that he could walk freely through certain areas of Baghdad.

“I just came from one,” he replied sharply. “Things are better and there are encouraging signs.”

He added, “Never have I been able to go out into the city as I was today.”

The report goes on, however, with a little background…

The delegation arrived at the market, which is called Shorja, on Sunday with more than 100 soldiers in armored Humvees — the equivalent of an entire company — and attack helicopters circled overhead, a senior American military official in Baghdad said. The soldiers redirected traffic from the area and restricted access to the Americans, witnesses said, and sharpshooters were posted on the roofs. The congressmen wore bulletproof vests throughout their hourlong visit.

“They paralyzed the market when they came,” Mr. Faiyad said during an interview in his shop on Monday. “This was only for the media.”

… and the merchants themselves seemed a little surprised to hear that things were getting better:

Merchants and customers say that a campaign by insurgents to attack Baghdad’s markets has put many shop owners out of business and forced radical changes in the way people shop. Shorja, the city’s oldest and largest market, set in a sprawling labyrinth of narrow streets and alleyways, has been bombed at least a half-dozen times since last summer.

At least 61 people were killed and many more wounded in a three-pronged attack there on Feb. 12 involving two vehicle bombs and a roadside bomb.

American and Iraqi security forces have tried to protect Shorja and other markets against car bombs by restricting vehicular traffic in some shopping areas and erecting blast walls around the markets’ perimeters. But those measures, while making the markets safer, have not made them safe.

In the latest large-scale attack on a Baghdad market, at least 60 people, most of them women and children, were killed last Thursday when a man wrapped in an explosives belt walked around such barriers into a crowded street market in the Shaab neighborhood and blew himself up.

In recent weeks, snipers hidden in Shorja’s bazaar have killed several people, merchants and the police say, and gunfights have erupted between militants and the Iraqi security forces in the area.

No doubt John McCain will be able to explain the discrepancies between his account and that of the merchants…