It's Along Way To Go When You Don't Know Where You're Going; You Don't Know Where You're Going When You're Lost...

Eugene Robinson:

At least the five senior Republicans and five senior Democrats who made up the panel have put down a marker. Facts do count, they remind us, and the possibility that the Iraq misadventure will spark a wider regional war is enough to powerfully concentrate the mind...

...Roughly the first half of the report is pure journalism, an example of what old foreign correspondents used to call a "situationer" -- a snapshot overview of whatever country one's editors thought needed assessing. I learned things I hadn't known...

...The second half of the report is less a news story than a long op-ed piece. The panel ruled out my preferred exit strategy, which it dismisses as "precipitate withdrawal." (I prefer to call it "wake up and smell the coffee.'') The report explains how splitting Iraq into three autonomous parts would be an unacceptably bloody process, as well as intolerable to the neighbors; and how the option of sending a lot more troops to Iraq, as Sen. John McCain advocates, is moot given that we don't have a lot more troops to send...

The report is harshest on the president's "stay the course" option, pointing out that the longer we remain, the worse the situation in Iraq seems to get -- and the more American troops are maimed or killed...

President Bush:

President Bush vowed yesterday to come up with "a new strategy" in Iraq but expressed little enthusiasm for the central ideas of a bipartisan commission that advised him to ratchet back the U.S. military commitment in Iraq and launch an aggressive new diplomatic effort in the region...

...The emerging debate over the report sets a baseline for the administration's own internal review of Iraq policy, which officials hope to complete in time for Bush to give a speech to the nation before Christmas announcing his new plan for Iraq. At a news conference with visiting British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Bush called himself "disappointed by the pace of success" and said that "we'll change it if we want to succeed..."

"...The American people expect us to come up with a new strategy to achieve the objective which I've been talking about," Bush said.

I'll believe in his "new strategy" when I see it. So far, Bush has not shown that he even understands the difference between "strategy" and "goal." When he talks about Iraq, everything is put in the context of what he wants to happen (goal) but he's yet been able to articulate how to get to that point with as few casualties as possible (strategy).