from face the nation sunday night (8/20): (pdf)

BOB SCHIEFFER: Tell us what you would do right now that is different than what the president is proposing.

Sen. LIEBERMAN: Yeah. I think there’s–three years ago in October on this show you asked me and I said that I believe that it was time for new leadership at the Pentagon. I think it’s still time for new leadership at the Pentagon. With all respect to Don Rumsfeld, who has done a grueling job for six years, we would benefit from new leadership to work with our military in Iraq. We also have to put severe pressure on the Iraqis to contain the sectarian violence that is there and stand up their ministries of defense and interior security. And then we’ve got to get the other Arab countries and hopefully some of the Europeans in with us to help to reconstruct Iraq. There is still hope in Iraq, and so long as there is, we cannot just pick up and, and walk away and leave them to the sure disaster that would follow and that would compromise our security in the war against terrorism.

SCHIEFFER: All right. All right.

JIM VANDEHEI: In five or 10 years, that’s fine?

Sen. LIEBERMAN: I don’t believe it will take five or 10 years.

SCHIEFFER: OK. I’m sorry. We have to let it go there. Thank you very much.

there’s that gutsy lieberman all those crazy republicans adore. i bet they just love that he called for the head of donald rumsfeld. i’m guessing this is not something karl rove told him to say. this is no different from what some of his fellow democrats have been saying, but lieberman is a little late to this bandwagon, even though he may have said something similar to this in the past. he is fighting an uphill battle if he thinks that he can win back those lamont voters with this suggestion. he has already lost them, and there’s nothing he can say to convince them that he is against this war or against anything the bush administration is doing.

i agree with most of what lieberman is suggesting here, although I’m not as optimistic as he is that we can get the europeans to help us with the reconstruction. they seem to view iraq as our mess to clean up, and i don’t know what incentives would change their minds about that. so we are where we are. we do need to re-think our current strategy there, because what we are doing now is not working. if we leave iraq without finishing what we started there, the situation will get worse, not better. that’s the reality.

i hope lieberman is right when he says that he doesn’t think that it will take five or ten years to stabilize iraq. there have been some estimates (one from the atlantic monthly) that paint a more gloomy picture of our progress in iraq and what it will take to complete this mission. unless the american people see significant signs of improvement in iraq, they won’t support five or ten more years there. the american people are unconvinced that we are winning in iraq. unless that changes, it will be difficult to keep our troops there much longer.

tags: war on terror, iraq, joe lieberman