Jonathan Rauch reaches new level of idiocy on Iraq

Writing in The Atlantic, Rauch says Dems should support a very (my emphasis) gradual withdrawal from Iraq in order to appeal to Congressional Republican sensibililities.

First, as noted at A Fistful of Euros, Rauch’s political calculations lead him to simply not mention the additional U.S. and Iraqi casualties from a delayed withdrawal. (If writing forty years ago, Rauch probably would have saluted Nixon’s “Peace with honor” and exercised the same blindsight.)

Second, he writes jewels like this:

[G]rown-up Republicans would recognize that withdrawal is inevitable; they would want to be relevant; they would feel battered by the election results.

Really? There are grown-up Republicans in Congress? We haven’t seen any since the change of party power in the start of 2007. We haven’t seen any that felt “battered” by the midterm election, even in the face of pending further electoral losses at the end of this year.

Third is the delusion that most Republicans recognized withdrawal is inevitable.