In the political realm, there's no escaping Iraq

WASHINGTON -- There's a feeling in both major parties that the debate over President Bush's decision to go to war in Iraq has run its course: Political energy should be focused on what to do next in Iraq, not on what's happened before.

Political leaders have reasons to avoid re-fighting the battles of 2003. Many Democrats want to project toughness on terrorism and can't do it if they're constantly remaking the case against war in Iraq. Many Republicans aren't ready to admit they were mistaken in supporting the war, but don't want to be reminded that their claims about weapons of mass destruction and how Iraqis would greet American liberators were badly off kilter.

Nonetheless, there's growing evidence that any serious political discussion about the future in the Middle East will lead inexorably back to the past -- and back to 2003.

The monumental questions raised by Bush's decision to go to war in Iraq -- whether an aggressive military posture in the Middle East prevents terrorism or simply creates more terrorists, whether the United States should focus its might on countries or on the terrorist groups themselves, and whether the United States should take action with or without United Nations approval -- seem destined to plague American foreign policy until they're fully debated.

``I firmly believe that if we left Iraq, we would not be long before they would be after us," declared Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, on CNN last week, after the killing of terrorist leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. ``Their goal is not just to take Iraq, their goal is to destroy us, everything we stand for and believe in. . . . I think it's clear that this is now part of a titanic struggle between radical Islamic extremism and Western values and standards."

This is Bush rhetoric, circa late 2002 and early 2003. But it's coming from McCain, who is the faraway leader in early polls for the next Republican presidential nomination.

The notion of a sweeping global battle between the terrorist ideology and Western democratic values is the political juice that fueled the decision to invade Iraq. It's a political winner because all Americans are eager to defend freedom and don't look forward to the day when ``they would be after us."

But there's a fuzziness in the term ``they" -- and Republicans tend to apply it equally to all terrorist groups whether they target the United States or not; to countries that allegedly support these groups; and to other unstable, failing regimes that could become terrorist breeding grounds. By defining the enemy so loosely, the fight for freedom against ``them" becomes a political passkey for military action around the world.

Some Democrats share Bush's and McCain's worldview. Most do not. Some of the dissenters feel war was justified to seek out the perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks but is of dubious legitimacy -- or even usefulness -- beyond that single purpose. Other Democrats favor an aggressive military posture but would choose different means, such as a larger role for the UN, and choose different targets.

Any effort to narrow the focus of political debate to the future of Iraq ignores these basic disagreements between the parties -- and allows the simpler narrative of the ``titanic struggle between radical Islamic extremism and Western values" to become more deeply ingrained.

Nonetheless, few Democrats are charting an alternative strategy for fighting terrorism. Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, on the campaign trail in New York, accuses the Bush administration of making mistakes in Iraq but seems reluctant to question its underlying approach to solving terrorism. Senator John F. Kerry of Massachusetts is putting all his political energy into promoting a phased withdrawal from Iraq.

Another Democrat being taken very seriously by party leaders as a presidential candidate, former Virginia governor Mark Warner, is crisscrossing the country to raise money -- but preserves his political virginity by saying almost nothing about Iraq or how to fight terrorism.

Meanwhile, aspiring Republican leaders seem prepared to adopt Bush's terrorism strategy and all his pre-Iraq rhetoric, while happily letting him take the blame for problems on the ground. McCain, for one, has made a strong show of independence from Bush through his high-profile battle to enact a ban on use of torture. But that battle also serves to obscure the fact that McCain has supported the mission in Iraq, and was the original favorite presidential candidate of neoconservatives back in 2000.

If no alternative worldview emerges, the Bush/McCain approach to the global war on terrorism could hold sway for another decade or more.

Peter S. Canellos is the Globe's Washington bureau chief. National Perspective is his weekly analysis of events in the capital and beyond.