Meanwhile, our Iraq policies are still terrible

In the U.S., the debate about Iraq is, understandably, focused on troop presence: whether/when we should redeploy troops, and how to do it. As most people know, not a single Republican presidential candidate (other than Ron Paul) wants to reduce force levels; not a single Democratic candidate wants to keep the troop number as high as it is now. Pretty straightforward.

But there is still over a year before somebody else takes over, and in the meantime, our policies in Iraq and the greater Middle East are horrendous. It's not just the escalation, it's political efforts, both through the military and purely diplomatically. Earlier this week, for example, Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki visited Iran, and the U.S. exploited his absence by bombarding Sadr City, a Shia section of Baghdad, with helicopter gunships and armored vehicles.

Sadr City is, unsurprisingly, the main source of support for the Sadrist political party (as well as the Sadrist Mahdi Militia), and while their support for Maliki is tenuous at best, if they truly turned against the national government, rather than just focusing their ire on the U.S., the results would be an even more explosive civil war (Shia vs. Shia) than already exists. The raid was apparently unsanctioned by the Baghdad government, and the renewed American effort against Shia groups is a real problem for Maliki. There is not a single relevant Shia militia that could be considered "anti-government" (as opposed to anti-U.S.), so American efforts against Shia militants is almost purely a U.S. issue. Shia groups do go after Sunnis, but we're not fighting all those Shia groups -- we don't seem to have a problem with the Badr Brigades, for example -- just the anti-American ones.

Regionally, McClatchy Newspapers, which has been a rare beacon of accurate reporting throughout the past several years, reports that Vice President Cheney is advocating a military strike on Iran. I simply cannot describe how horrific an idea this is. That's not a knee-jerk reaction, it's not a partisan response, and I'm no pacifist: on purely policy grounds, it is almost impossible to overstate the damage to U.S. interests that would result from bombing Iran. It would not accomplish a single benefit.

It would not stem Iranian influence in Iraq, and it certainly wouldn't reduce attacks on U.S. soldiers in Iraq -- indeed, it would almost certainly spark a massive Shia reaction, motivating groups that have thus far avoided open conflict with the U.S. The response from Badr and Mahdi in particular could be devastating -- and for what? To what end? It would not end the Iranian nuclear program; after Osirak (when Israel bombed an Iraqi nuclear facility), nations started putting their nuclear operations largely out of reach of those types of attacks.

The escalation was supposed to provide time for beneficial political developments in Iraq, not dangerous and harmful political developments in the Bush administration. It's quite a debacle.