Russ Feingold says “Some will claim that cutting off funding for the war would endanger our brave troops on the ground. Not true. The safety of our service men and women in Iraq is paramount, and we can and should end funding for the war without putting our troops in further danger.” I tend to agree. Let me propose, however, a terminological switch. Talk of “cutting off funding” for the war implies that the troops will be sitting there in Iraq and then one day — bam — run out of money. The funding issue, however, is a red herring to anyone not steeped in the arcana of the legislative process. Before the 2006 midterms, most Democrats were happy to call for a “phased redeployment” of American troops out of Iraq. That language was politically viable and describes sensible policy. The right thing to do after the election is for congress to mandate a phased redeployment of American troops out of Iraq.

Yes, it’s true, that the means by which such a mandate would be achieved are financial, but the money isn’t the crux of the matter. The proposal on the table is to redeploy our forces. It was the proposal before the election and with the election won, Democrats should be writing legislation to mandate it. Bush will presumably veto such legislation, but that’s the best the congress can do and the congress should do its best. But don’t talk about the money, talk about the troops.

I suppose the main problem with labeling the troop increase an “escalation” is that it’s hard to know what to call the continuation of the other escalation, as our deployment of naval assets (and officers) and verbal threats to Iran is backed up by attacking an Iranian consulate in Kurdistan and holding six diplomatic personnel hostage. Hat tips to Jonah G. and Ackerman. There are more legal wrinkles here than I would have thought, but on the foreign policy level the implications seem clear.

Metaphors are very important, in politics as elsewhere. Michael O’Hare tries a bit to pick apart the metaphor of escalation as a “hail mary” pass, but I think he misses the central point. In a football game, the point of a hail mary play is that it’s a desperate gamble embarked upon by a team that has nothing to lose. It’s a risky, low percentage play and running it tends to increase your chances of losing the football game. But when the only alternative is certain defeat, it looks more appealing. This, however, is because all losses are equal in football.

Wars peripheral to the national interest aren’t like that. Leaving Iraq in a shambles will have bad results, possibly even very bad results, but it’s not as if we need to attempt one last desperate gamble or else the nation faces certain destruction.

The point of view from which the hail mary metaphor makes the most sense is if your primary concern is not the interests of the United States of America but the reputation of George W. Bush and other leading architects of war. From that point of view, the difference between initiating and then losing a war at great cost and initiating and then losing a war at even greater cost really is minimal, much like in a football game. From Bush’s point of view, conceding that his Iraq policy has failed is so catastrophic to his ego and reputation that it makes perfect sense to ask other people to bear any burden and pay any price for even the smallest sliver of a hope of even deferring the problem successfully. For the country, though, it doesn’t make sense at all.

Tavernise and Burns reporting from Baghdad note that “As President Bush challenges public opinion at home by committing more American troops, he is confronted by a paradox: an Iraqi government that does not really want them.” For the purposes of being non-shrill and non-alienating it’s generally a good plan to avoid the term, but the key to this paradox is, of course, imperialism. Iraq is, legally, a sovereign nation, but Nouri al-Maliki is, practically speaking, in no position to contradict White House dictates. Privately, however, “aides to Mr. Maliki have been saying for weeks that the government is wary of the proposal.”

So to sum up, neither the American military nor the American congress nor the American people nor the Iraqi government nor the Iraqi public wants an American military escalation. Naturally, we’re getting one.

Okay, looked at the text. The main thing people are noting is that there’s nothing new here. Like every other “new” strategy for Iraq the president has unveiled (and I think this is the third) it isn’t actually new, it’s more of the same. That, however, isn’t quite true. Bush argues that in the past “there were too many restrictions on the troops we did have.” I think this is a quiet reference to complaints that have been bubbling for some time on the time that the rules of engagement on American forces are too restrictive. So, in short, we’re going to keep doing what we’ve been doing for. But we’ll have somewhat more troops doing it and they’ll be unleashing a somewhat larger level of violence. This last thing, if I’m correct, runs totally against the doctrine in General Petraeus’ counterinsurgency manual but it suits General Odierno’s tastes, the president’s tastes, and the views of conservative pundits, so why not go for it?

The other, and even more important, new thing is that Bush seems to be saying here that he intends to start one or two new wars:

Succeeding in Iraq also requires defending its territorial integrity and stabilizing the region in the face of extremist challenge. This begins with addressing Iran and Syria. These two regimes are allowing terrorists and insurgents to use their territory to move in and out of Iraq. Iran is providing material support for attacks on American troops. We will disrupt the attacks on our forces. We will interrupt the flow of support from Iran and Syria. And we will seek out and destroy the networks providing advanced weaponry and training to our enemies in Iraq.

It’s hard to see how will do these things without launching military attacks on Iran or Syria. He goes on to talk about how he “ordered the deployment of an additional carrier strike group to the region” and, of course, he put a Navy guy in charge of CENTCOM.