I attended the New Yorker town hall meeting on Iraq on Friday, and though the panel was quite impressive (everyone to Doug Feith to Robert Baer, James Woolsey and Mark Danner), I was quite disappointed by the lack of substantive discussion. It seems that everyone on the left is dwelling on how we were misled into the war, the lack of strategic planning for the long run, so on and so forth. These were valid arguments 6 months ago. Now, I'm most concerned with hearing the substantive debates on policy going forward. As was evident on the panel, it seems like there is absolutely no consensus -- or even remotely intelligent insights -- on either side of the aisle as to where we go from here. The panel consisted of a tremendous amount of easy cheapshots (mostly directed at Feith), pander-bearing to the largely liberal audience courtesy of Mr. Danner (a New Yorker reporter) and the tired "regardless of the lack of wmd's, the war was still justified on a humanitarian level" rhetoric favored by Mr. Woolsey and the left wing right wing acid trip Christopher Hitchens. Ex-CIA operative Robert Baer, who has a tremendous amount of experience in the region, contributed nothing more substantial then his "Iraq is a great recruiting device for terrorists" standby that we've been hearing for the past several months. Also, predictably, when they opened up questions from the audience, all hell broke loose and descended into the left-wing fingerpointing and tired, staid cliches that make my skin crawl now. Also irritating was the bleacher seat heckling whenever Douglas Feith opened his mouth. Admittedly, he said nothing of substance and filibustered on every question, but I still believe in his right to respond to questions without some first-year NYU politics student screaming the equivalent of "no blood for oil!"

The point to be taken from all of this is: We were misled into war. There are no WMDs to be found. No strategic planning for the occupation. Good, great, grand. This has been long established, and will no doubt be examined by historians for years to come. The question we must now concern ourselves with his: What now? Will a pullout meet a descent into protracted civil war and greater instability then pre fall of Saddam? Will this conflict be a hot potato tossed onto the lap of the next administration? All questions that need to be answered sometime very soon.