Since leaving CNN, former anchor Lou Dobbs has insisted that he’s always supported “humane immigration reform” and a path to legalization for undocumented immigrants “under certain conditions.” Last Friday, Dobbs provided more details regarding what a path to legalization should look like:

CALLER: We’re going to have to do something about the 12 million illegal immigrants. And rounding them all up and sending them back to countries that will not accept them is going to be way too expensive. What I’m suggesting is force these pepople who want to stay to register, they must then go through a lengthy process of working and paying into our Social Security and Medicare — with no benefit of it unless they become citizens over an extended period of time…

DOBBS: Right…Oh sure, I’ve said this for years…I think Dick, you’re making a lot of sense, and I hope a lot of Americans will be making sense right there with you…There are good faith individuals out there with good faith organizations who can come together and create real solutions instead of the nonsense that has dominated the propaganda campaign from all sides here over this issue.

Listen:

Curiously, the solution Dobbs’ caller proposed is very similar to the path to legalization stipulated in the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2007 — legislation which Dobbs repeatedly slammed and described as an “amnesty bill.” The bill declared English the national language and would’ve adjusted the status of undocumented immigrants without a criminal record who registered with the government, paid a fine and back taxes, had established five years of residency, and proved they had been employed for three years.

In fact, Dobbs didn’t just employ a “pejorative term favored by Republicans who opposed” immigration reform, he also promoted false claims about the bill. Dobbs reported that “illegal alien gang members are eligible for amnesty,” despite the fact an amendment to the bill specifically stated that any current or former gang members would be deported.

While conservatives have generally been pleased with President Obama’s decision to send 30,000 more U.S. troops to Afghanistan, many have expressed disappointment at the president’s promulgating Summer 2011 as a goal for beginning the handover of security responsibilities to Afghans, suggesting that announcing any sort of drawdown goal will only cause the Taliban to hunker down and “wait us out.”

Elrod at the Moderate Voice has a good response:

Quite simply, the Taliban does not have the luxury of “waiting us out” for 18 months. If they survive that long then it is because we failed in our ground-level counterinsurgency policy, not because we telegraphed our intention not to stay indefinitely. And if they do try and lay low and wait us out, the Afghan army and government will have had that much more time to establish its legitimate control over the entirety of southern Afghanistan.

If killing the enemy were the main goal, then their decision to hunker down and wait for the U.S. to begin leaving might be a problem. But as the main goal of the new COIN strategy in Afghanistan is to secure the population, build trust with local communities through effective delivery of services, all the while increasing Afghan capacity to continue doing those things when we leave, it’s really not. The Taliban “waiting us out” would just give the U.S. more time and space to make Afghanistan a more inhospitable place for the Taliban.

Beyond that, the “they’ll wait us out!” argument betrays a pretty clear lack of understanding of the counterinsurgency strategy being implemented in Afghanistan, in which the civilian population, not the enemy insurgents themselves, are the focus of operations. When Sen. John McCain criticizes talk of withdrawal by insisting, as he did on Meet the Press yesterday, that “The rationale for war is to break the enemy’s will,” all he’s telling us is that he hasn’t bothered to do his homework on this particular war. Which, given McCain’s known preference for empty sloganeering over actual policy, should be shocking to no one.

Our guest blogger is Brian Katulis, a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

Mowaffaq Al-Rubaie, Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki’s former Iraqi national security advisor who held his post during the 2007-2008 surge of U.S. forces to Iraq, raised doubts about the Obama administration’s decision to send additional troops to Afghanistan and said that the United States may be misreading the lessons from Iraq.

At a conference last Friday looking at dynamics in Iraq as it heads to new elections organized by the Landau Network Centro Volto, Dr. Al-Rubaie asked the conference, “Did the surge (in Iraq) do what it was supposed to do or not? No one will be able to answer this question.”

In a conversation with him later, Al-Rubaie chuckled when I mentioned that the policy community in America has concluded that it was the addition of U.S. troops that was the central factor in stemming the violence. Al-Rubaie enumerated other factors — including the violence by Shia militia groups and the formation of Sunni awakening groups as other key variables contributing to declines in Iraq’s violence. “There’s no double blind control test” that can be done on the Iraq surge to prove anyone’s case, said Al-Rubaie — his comments suggesting that the conventional wisdom about the Iraq surge, on display in this morning’s article by the Washington Post’s Fred Hiatt — isn’t an accurate reflection of reality.

“We had been saying to the Americans since 2006 — please remove the U.S. presence from the streets,” Al-Rubaie told the conference. It was previously reported that when President George W. Bush met with Prime Minister Maliki in Amman in November 2006, the Iraqi leader came with a Powerpoint presentation arguing against the U.S. surge of forces. Al-Rubaie argued that there haven’t been many U.S. troop deaths in Iraq since the U.S. presence was removed from urban areas this past June — and he said this was “a point the Obama administration should take into account in Afghanistan.”

Al-Rubaie admitted that he was not familiar with the situation in Afghanistan, but he indicated the Obama administration should be wary about transferring any sorts of models from Iraq to what is a different society. He guessed that President Obama was reluctant to send more forces. Speaking of General David Petraeus, the former top U.S. military commander in Iraq and now the overall commander of U.S. forces in the Middle East and South Asia, Al-Rubaie said, “I know Dave and General McChrystal very well. My guess is that they pressured President Obama to make this decision on Afghanistan.”

Al-Rubaie stepped down from his post last June. He is a member of the Iraqi Council of Representatives and is preparing to run in next year’s elections.