Brooks is simply incorrigible. Check this lead:
If the Democrats don’t like the U.S. policy on Iraq over the next six months, they have themselves partly to blame. There were millions of disaffected Republicans and independents ready to coalesce around some alternative way forward, but the Democrats never came up with anything remotely serious.
. . . The Democrats have been fecund with criticisms of the war, but when it comes to alternative proposals, a common approach is social Darwinism on stilts: We failed them, now they’re on their own.
So we are stuck with the Bush proposal as the only serious plan on offer. The question is, what exactly did President Bush propose last night? The policy rollout has been befogged by so much spin and misdirection it’s nearly impossible to figure out what the president is proposing.
The Bush proposal a serious plan? Yes Brooks, a lying idiot like you would think that. More.
The basic lie that Brooks presents is that withdrawal is not a "serious plan." Because of the "consequences" says Brooks. What are the consequences Brooks? Chaos? Violence? Civil war? Riiiight, that would be some change from the current situation.
But what of Bush's serious plan? Even Brooks writes:
The Iraqi government wants a unified non-sectarian solution in high-minded statements and in some distant, ideal world. But in the short term, and in the deepest reptilian folds of their brains, the Shiites are maneuvering amid the sectarian bloodbath all around.
This is not a function of the character of Maliki or this or that official. It’s a function of the core dynamic now afflicting Iraqi society.
The enemy in Iraq is not some discrete group of killers. It’s the maelstrom of violence and hatred that infects every institution, including the government and the military. Instead of facing up to this core reality, the Bush administration has papered it over with salesmanship and spin.
That's Brooks' idea of a serious plan. And of course, as has every single pundit in America, he ignores the reality that staying the course in Iraq, and that is what Bush is proposing, is to continue to fight Iran's battles in Iraq. It is to defend and secure an Iran supporting Shiite theocracy. But, Brooks would argue:
Instead of handing counterinsurgency over to the Iraqis/Shiites, he decided to throw roughly 20,000 U.S. troops — everything he had available — into Baghdad. He and his advisers negotiated new rules of engagement to make it easier to go after Shiites as well as Sunnis. He selected two aggressive counterinsurgency commanders, David Petraeus and Raymond Odierno, to lead the effort. Odierno recently told John Burns of The Times that American forces would remain in cleared areas of Baghdad "24/7," suggesting a heavy U.S. presence.
That means going after Sadr and the Mahdi Army. But the idea that Maliki will support going after Sadr is delusion:
John Burns [said] . . . that it's silly to really believe that Maliki is going to try to crush the Mahdi Army when they a) give him the votes to remain Prime Minister and b), more importantly, those are the fighters Maliki is planning on using the Civil War really gets cracking. As Burns put it, they're Maliki's Plan B.
The whole exercise is a delusional fairy tale. But David Brooks is an expert at those.