corrente

It's good to hear this said at last. Also, I like the measured way Kerry is talking here.

"This administration has been gridlocked by its own ideology and its own arrogance," Kerry told about two dozen Democratic donors at a breakfast meeting. "Yes, we can succeed but, boy I tell you, it's a lot tougher."

The presumptive Democratic presidential nominee said President Bush should admit the conduct of the war in Iraq and the country's subsequent reconstruction "is more complicated than they thought it was."

Critics have complained that Bush rushed into war with Iraq on the advice of hawks in his administration like Vice President Dick Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and his deputy, Paul Wolfowitz, and without a realistic plan for its aftermath.

Kerry said Bush had failed to minimize the risk for U.S. soldiers in Iraq as well as the cost to taxpayers.

"This administration has stubbornly refused to involve other countries in the real decision-making," the Massachusetts senator said. "I think this is a failure of diplomacy, a failure of foreign policy, a failure of creative leadership."

Kerry said the United States now had three options in Iraq.

The first -- to continue along the same lines -- would mean American troops would remain exposed, taxpayers would bear billions of dollars in costs and "we will go down a very dangerous road where the outcome is very difficult.

Option two, you could just say 'okay, you guys don't want democracy? We'll see you. We're out of here.' Not acceptable, because nobody believes that we are better off with an Iraq that is unstable.

The third alternative -- what Kerry called the "smart" approach --- was to reach out boldly and clearly to the international community, explain their stake in not having a failed Iraq and give them real say in its transformation.
(via Reuters)

He's talkin' sense, Merle!

And Bush will reach out to anyone else when hell freezes over. Looks to me like the June 30 deadline is a fig leaf for option 2: "we're outta here." As usual, Atrios is right: We need to find something that works."

Readers, what do you think of Kerry's options? Are there others?

UPDATE Comment from alert reader SW:

Option #2 isn't a Bush option. They are building 14 permanant bases. We might cut and run regarding the pretense of reconstruction the country. But there is no way these guys are giving up their bases. The bases are why they fought the war. Getting someone to sign the treaty granting basing rights is the only purpose for the interim government that we are going to "hand off" soverignty to 9/30. So we are never leaving Iraq. They've got Gitmo in their eyes.

See Chalmers Johnson's The Story of Empire on this point.