Brian Greenspun on some hard facts from the nation’s capital about our situation in Iraq

Sunday, March 4, 2007 | 7:31 a.m.

What do we do next in Iraq?

I just came home from a few days of fact-finding in our nation's capital. What is interesting is that there is no shortage of facts inside that particular part of the Beltway, but there is a dearth of accurate ones!

Before the English teachers jump all over me, I know that there are no true and false facts - facts are facts which, by definition, are true. But in the Alice in Wonderland world of politics, there seems to be drawn a distinction. If you don't believe me, pick a cable "news" program - how about on Fox - and see how many times they try to pass fantasy off as fact. (Can't wait for the e-mails on that one!)

So if I have been successful in sorting out the facts from what's left, here is what I learned this past week. Nothing!

That's right, nobody I talked to has a clue what to do next, in part because they don't know for certain that President Bush's current surge will fail. And, although I could find no one outside of the White House who would even pretend to believe that the surge or anything like it would have any lasting effect on the outcome in Iraq, they were loath to suggest failure because no one - yes, no one - in Washington in either major political party or elsewhere wants the United States to fail in Iraq - or wants to think about the unthinkable.

So I had to content myself with streams of consciousness that were mixed liberally - or was it conservatively - with facts and wishes about what some very thoughtful people were thinking was the way out of one of the biggest messes in which this country has ever found itself.

Since much of what I heard was "off the record," I am not allowed to name names. I can, however, give general descriptions of the kinds of people I talked to about Iraq. There were senators, Republican and Democrat, congressmen, ditto on the party affiliation, and others who lay claim to scholarly titles and decades of experience in diplomatic and war-making matters of the world.

The consensus is that there will come a time when the United States will have to lead its way out of the Middle Eastern mess in which we find ourselves. That time will come around the same time we accept the fact that the world's greatest superpower cannot yet fight and win the kind of war that is being waged against us.

Much like the British were confounded by American irregulars who shot, ran and shot against disciplined Redcoats all lined up in a row, American men and women in the military are not yet equipped with the tactics and experience to combat roadside bombs, armor-piercing explosives that cut through anything we have in Iraq, and people willing to strap themselves up with enough explosives to blast themselves and their innocent victims to opposite ends of the spiritual and religious worlds.

It isn't that our armed services aren't the best in the world, because they are. It is, rather, that the world and warfare have changed and from now on wars, if they must be fought, will have to be multipronged affairs.

That means while we are pounding people on the ground there will also have to be concerted diplomatic efforts under way pounding on the tables. And that means that the age of unilateralism is also over. From now on, real allies are essential because the world is so much more complicated than it has ever been. Talking to our enemies will also be an essential ingredient.

I realize there are many people who don't believe the United States should ever have to think like this but, unfortunately, they are wrong. That time is gone, perhaps forever. And, certainly, for the foreseeable future our choices are slim.

We either express our military might in a way that leaves no doubt about our intentions and desire to win - that would come in the form of overwhelming force and unrelenting destruction - or we express it in a way that, combined with our diplomatic skill and our ability to forge broad-based alliances, produces most of what we need to move forward in this ever-complicated world.

If we have learned that much from Iraq, then it cannot be said that this war was a complete failure. And, if we are fortunate over the next few months and people who would never talk to one another actually do, there might be a better outcome than even the most knowledgeable people think possible.

So, that is what I learned in Washington this past week. Some would consider the trip a large waste of time. They wouldn't be wrong if they are the folks who still think the world revolves around the United States. But they would be wrong to continue to believe that in the face of overwhelming proof to the contrary. Washington, on all sides of every aisle you can find, is coming around to that conclusion. And that, my friends, is a very true fact.