The great question

General John J. Sheehan, in today's Washington Post, gives his reasons for declining the "war czar" position:

What I found in discussions with current and former members of this administration is that there is no agreed-upon strategic view of the Iraq problem or the region. In my view, there are essentially three strategies in play simultaneously.

The first I call "the Woody Hayes basic ground attack," which is basically gaining one yard -- or one city block -- at a time. Given unconstrained time and resources, one could control the outcome in Iraq and provide the necessary security to move on to the next stage of development.

The second strategy starts with security but adds benchmarks for both the U.S. and Iraqi participants and applies time constraints that should guide them toward a desired outcome. The value of this strategy is that everyone knows the quantifiable and measurable objectives that fit within an overall strategic framework.

The third strategy takes a larger view of the region and the desired end state. Simply put, where does Iraq fit in a larger regional context? The United States has and will continue to have strategic interests in the greater Middle East well after the Iraq crisis is resolved and, as a matter of national interest, will maintain forces in the region in some form. The Iraq invasion has created a real and existential crisis for nearly all Middle Eastern countries and created divisions among our traditional European allies, making cooperation on other issues more difficult...

Finally:

...I concluded that the current Washington decision-making process lacks a linkage to a broader view of the region and how the parts fit together strategically.

The problem with the first strategy is that, historically, the "one block at a time" approach never works against a popular insurgency. Look and see: Stalingrad, Algeria, Vietnam. The other problem is that everyone in the world hates foreign armies fighting popular insurgencies. Look and see: Stalingrad, Algeria , Vietnam. At any rate, we do not have unlimited resources -- China is printing up money just to service our debt, which means that the economy must one day experience a shit-meets-fan moment.

The problem with the second strategy outlined above is that all benchmarks have heretofore gone unmet, and likely will continue to go unmet. What then?

The problem with the third strategy, the big picture, is that we cannot have a presence in the Middle East if war radicalizes the region against us. Oil will increasingly be denominated in dollars. The Saudi monarchy is unstable and could be replaced by something much worse. Bush will never properly address the festering issue of Israel's brutality toward the Palestinians. The people of that region know, as Americans will not allow themselves to know, that we got into this mess because we lusted for oil, because we put Israel's strategic interests ahead of ours, and because the neocon "grand vision" had the disadvantage of being untethered to reality.

What, then, to do?

Suppose we wake up one fine day, a week or two hence, and discover that Nancy Pelosi has been sworn in as President. What "broader view" should she pursue -- aside from wishing that this whole debacle had never happened?