Finally, the Democrats have found a theme with which to criticize the administration in Iraq while supporting the continued occupation. It comes down to an increasingly popular term: "internationalization." Here are Howard Dean and Hillary Clinton's deployments of the new argument yesterday, and my comments.

First, Dean. Here's his peroration:

I hope the Administration will use Saddam's capture as an opportunity to move U.S. policy in a more effective direction.

America's interests will be best served by acting with dispatch to work as partners with free Iraqis to help them build a stable, self-governing nation, not by prolonging our term as Iraq's ruler.

So far, it's difficult to see any distinction between Dean's policy and Bush's.

To succeed we also need urgently to remove the label "made in America" from the Iraqi transition. We need to make the reconstruction a truly international project, one that integrates NATO, the United Nations, and other members of the international community, and that reduces the burden on America and our troops.

This is the critical paragraph. And it certainly posits a situation devoutly to be wished for. The Bush administration appealed at great length to the United Nations to sanction and contribute to Iraq's liberation. France, Germany, and Russia were the critical powers that prevented that from occurring, just as Russia had prevented exactly the same kind of U.N.-sanctioned coalition to free Kosovo and Bosnia from the threat of Milosevic in the 1990s. But now that the liberation has occurred, is some sort of international coalition being stymied by the Bush administration?

Here's what the president said on December 11: "We're constantly working to get foreign countries involved [in rebuilding Iraq], but I want to remind you we've got over 60 nations involved now. When you hear me talk about 'our' efforts, I'm talking about the efforts of a lot of countries, we've got a large coalition involved."

Who does that leave out? Well, first off, the United Nations. Is this a function of American policy? Not at all. The administration was only too happy to work with the United Nations in the early days after liberation--but after the bombing of the U.N. headquarters in Baghdad in August, the United Nations split of its own accord. Last week, Kofi Annan ruled out any change in this position. He said, "I cannot compromise the security of our international and national staff." The U.N. report on the possibility of a return to Iraq concluded: "Under the circumstances, it is difficult to envisage the United Nations operating with a large number of international staff inside Iraq in the near future, unless there is an unexpected and significant improvement in the overall security situation." So the notion--insinuated by Howard Dean--that the United Nations is somehow being kept from participating by the Bush administration is simply untrue. Moreover, there is no international body that could provide the kind of legitimacy for the occupation that the United Nations could. And it won't. Dean doesn't even address this. Because if he did, his entire argument would collapse.

NATO? Well, many NATO countries are already involved in reconstruction in Iraq. Britain has been stalwart and is still occupying large swaths of the southern part of the country. The Italians and Poles have a presence. Spain is supportive. Turkey was willing but was ultimately turned down. France's condition for involvement is the kind of accelerated transfer of sovereignty that would guarantee chaos. The same applies to Germany. But even if these latter two countries did send the modest numbers of troops they have available (it isn't a large amount), the occupying forces would still be overwhelmingly American and British. No amount of renaming or redescribing the coalition will persuade those Iraqis eager for an end to occupation that their country wasn't liberated primarily by the United States.

NATO, in other words, is already de facto in Iraq. And it is operating in Afghanistan de jure--and in many ways, the security and political situation is less stable there than in Iraq. The notion that NATO would somehow be a panacea is a fantasy.

But it is a politically convenient one. Here's Senator Clinton making Dean-like comments at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York yesterday:

It has been a continuing theme of my criticism and others that we would be further along, we would have more legitimacy, we would diminish the opposition and resentment that is fueling whatever remains of the insurgency if we had been willing to move to internationalize our presence and further action in Iraq. I believe that today. And in fact, I think that we now have a new opportunity for the administration to do just that.

We could, if the administration were to be so inclined, open the door to a stronger and wider coalition that would help us rebuild and safeguard Iraq and provide a transition to self-government. As President Bush said in his remarks to the nation yesterday, the capture of Saddam, while extremely important, does not signal the end of this conflict. The violence is likely to continue...

But again, how? And which countries should we be asking that we haven't already asked?

It would be timely and, I think, appropriate to now create a bridge using international support and legitimacy, similarly to what we did in Bosnia and Kosovo. The timing would be appropriate. The American military would still be in charge and responsible for security, but we could begin to cede some of the hard political decision-making to an international presence.

This is extraordinarily and necessarily vague. An "international presence"--which cannot be the United Nations, because the U.N. won't brave it--has to be the authority that engages in "hard political decision-making." In the unstable and shifting landscape of an Iraq on the eve of a difficult transition, we cede all authority to some nebulous international body with no arms or soldiers of its own? American troops would take orders from such a body. Who would head it? Hans Blix?

Now as we look at the election process that is contemplated, Ambassador Bremer told Senator Reed and myself that he would very much like the United Nations to monitor the election process. I agree with that. But it will be very difficult to convince the United Nations to come in to help monitor an election process that it has nothing to do with setting up or creating the means of implementing. I can't believe that we could expect the United Nations to participate without some more authority and involvement. But now would be the time to try to create those conditions...

But again: The United Nations won't go back. They've said so. They have reiterated their position. All of Clinton's arguments are irrelevant under those conditions. The United Nations will return only when real security is achieved but Clinton wants the United Nations involved in order to achieve that security. Is the Senator from New York even aware of the U.N.'s position? Or is she ignoring it because it makes nonsense of her position?

I would strongly recommend we create some kind of organization--call it what you will; the Iraq Reconstruction and Stabilization Authority, or whatever name is chosen. It could include a proper role for NATO and for the U.N., which would replace the Coalition Provisional Authority, which would add both military and civilian resources so that this was not just an American occupation, and would provide more flexibility for us in achieving the timetable at whatever speed is appropriate to transfer sovereignty to the Iraqis.

Again, what this amounts to, at best, is window-dressing on an occupation; and an abdication of American responsibility to see the Iraq reconstruction effort through. And, when you think of the first practical step toward such a new authority, it falls apart. A critical power that would lend the kind of international "legitimacy" that Senator Clinton craves is France. But this week, France again refused to send any troops until sovereignty has been transferred; and Senator Clinton wants to delay that transition of sovereignty even longer than President Bush does. Again, she is essentially arguing against herself. Dominique de Villepin graciously offered to reconsider parts of Iraq's debt to France, and also to help "in the humanitarian domain, of course, and in the cooperative domain, whether it be education, health or even archeology." Memo to Hillary: That's not troops. And it amounts to very little that would make the slightest difference to Iraq's transition.

It's good, of course, that many in the Democratic Party leadership now want to reassure Americans that they are not merely the antiwar party. But in their vague and convenient allusions to an "internationalization" option that simply doesn't exist, they are mistaking fantasy for reality. Worse, they may be coming up with an option that they themselves know is unfeasible--merely in order to keep a distance between themselves and the coalition's fate in Iraq. That's putting short-term partisan gain over serious grappling with national security. Which is what many of us suspected of the Democrats in the first place.