The cover Republicans need?

By Edward Copeland

Dubya has lost one of the most respected Republican voices in Congress on foreign policy matters. Indiana Sen. Richard Lugar took to the Senate floor last night to say that there must be a new course in Iraq, surprising many who figured Republicans would wait until September to start breaking with the White House on the war.

In my judgment, the costs and risks of continuing down the current path outweigh the potential benefits that might be achieved. Persisting indefinitely with the surge strategy will delay policy adjustments that have a better chance of protecting our vital interests over the long term.

Lugar went on to say both parties need to give in order to get Iraq to any sort of viable conclusion, emphasizing the need for downsizing the military presence and pursuing diplomatic and economic solutions.

Even if the results of military operations improve in the coming months, there is little reason to assume that this will diminish Sunni ambitions to reclaim political preeminence or Shia plans to dominate Iraq after decades of Saddam's harsh rule. Few Iraqi leaders are willing to make sacrifices or expose themselves to risks on behalf of the type of unified Iraq that the Bush Administration had envisioned. In contrast, there are many Iraqi leaders who are deeply invested in a sectarian or tribal agenda. More often than not, these agendas involve not just the protection of fellow Sunnis, Shiites, and Kurds, but the expansion of territorial dominance and economic privileges. Even if U.S. negotiators found a way to forge a political settlement among selected representatives of the major sectarian factions, these leaders have not shown the ability to control their members at the local level. After an intense year-and-a-half of bloodletting, many sub-factions are thoroughly invested in the violence. We have the worst of both worlds in Iraq -- factional leaders who don't believe in our pluralist vision for their country and smaller sub-factions who are pursuing violence on their own regardless of any accommodations by more moderate fellow sectarians. As David Brooks recently observed in the New York Times, the fragmentation in Iraq has become so prevalent that Iraq may not even be able to carry out a traditional civil war among cohesive factions.

Lugar's lengthy speech even brought up the sad facts of the U.S. dependency on foreign oil and lack of initiative on mileage standards and other energy issues.

Incredibly, cars in America today get less mileage per gallon than they did twenty years ago. Meanwhile, hybrids, plug-in hybrids, and fully electric cars are at or nearly at commercialization, yet there is not enough incentive for consumers to buy them or producers to make them on the mass scale necessary. For fiscal year 2008, the Administration requested just $176 million for new vehicle technology research -- an amount that was less than what was requested five years ago. Given that other developed nations have made great strides in improving fuel economy, this is fertile ground for rapid improvement. In fact, achievements on this front largely would be a matter of generating and sustaining political will that has, thus far, been disappointing.

Now comes the big question: Will Lugar's words open the floodgates and give his fellow lawmakers the courage to challenge the White House or, even more unlikely, wake the administration up? Since Darth Cheney considers himself his own branch of government now as president of the Senate, will he seek to punish Lugar for his reason?