Here are thoughts about some lessons and things that might be important moving ahead after this weekend:

1) Just do it. Keeping the political process moving has been so important. The administration did on the January 30 elections, against the advice of liberals. It has been doing it on the constitution, against the advice of some of it allies. As I’ve said before, without deadlines nothing would get done in Iraq (or not so much would be get done, to pre-empt Michael Ledeen’s objection).

2) Engage the insurgency. I’m not sure this is possible. But if it is, we need to do it. Insurgences usually end not on the basis of force alone, but on the strength of a successful political process and offers of negotiation and amnesty (El Salvador is a great example). IF there are elements of the insurgency that are engageable, IF they have leaders who can make a deal stick–all big if’s–we should be talking to them.

3) Stay on the right side of the nationalism curve. Historically, nationalism is the great driver of insurgences. It’s been a great boon to us that, since Bremer stood down, we have not been standing in the way in any way of Iraqi self-determination. In fact, we’ve been in favor of it. The only real irritant to nationalism is the presence of our foreign occupying army. IF there is an engageable Sunni leadership–again, I don’t know if there is–and we could get key tribal leaders, clerics, etc. to perform in terms of tamping down the violence, I think we should be willing to hold out the carrot of troop withdrawals in some form or other (the premise here is that we could do it without drastically undermining the security situation). There are really two competing foreign occupying armies in Iraq, ours and Zarqawi’s. We want the motivating force of Iraq nationalism to be directed at his, not ours.

4) Lean on the Shiites. This will irritate folks who scream, “But don’t you know they’ve been repressed by the bastard Sunnis for decades!!!” Yes, I know. But here’s the deal: It’s their country, if it just holds together. The future is theirs, with 60% of the population. Concessions now to get the Sunnis once and for all in the political process–even if it means giving a pass to some nasty people–will pay off in the long run. In general, the Shiite patience in the face of spectacular provocation has been stunning. But at times during the constitutional process they seemed willing to try to use their majority to tell everyone else to go pound sand. An understandable impulse, but short-sighted.

5) Lower expectations. They’ve gotten lower and probably need to go a little lower still. It is probably going to be a very long time before all car bombings stop in Iraq. And in the end, as long as they don’t threaten the existence of the government, as long as they don’t mean that terrorists have major sanctuaries (e.g. a Fallujah), they don’t threaten our national security interests and they should over time be considered primarily an Iraqi problem.

All of this is easy to say at a distance, but it obviously has to be worked on the ground, by people who know the players and what is really possible. It will require flexibility, compromise, patience, and realism on our part. And some luck and visionary Iraqi leadership. But we can still win in Iraq, making us safer and the region better.