South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham (who sits on the Armed Services Committee) gave a telephone briefing today on the Iraq hearings set to start tomorrow. As expected, he acknowledged that between the collapse of the Saddam Hussein’s government and the surge which began in January 2007 “all the trend lines were going in a negative direction.” But, he went on to observe, since the proper allocation of troops and a revised strategy there has been “undeniable progress.”

As for the hearings themselves, he hinted strongly that the “suspension of disbelief” line from Hillary Clinton and the Democrats’ previous dismissal of General Petraeus’ views during the last set of hearings in September would come up again. I asked about Barack Obama’s plan to pull out troops but leave in a “strike force” to combat al Qaeda. Graham dismissed this as exactly the “old strategy” which had failed in Iraq, pre-surge. He bluntly stated that this idea is a “bone” Obama is throwing to the public, which remains concerned about how a withdrawal of troops will affect our fight against Islamic terrorism.

On the political front he believes the changes in Iraq have fundamentally shifted the terrain in Congress, and among Republicans in particular there will be great reluctance to disrupt the current strategy. Bottom line: you can expect Republicans to be on the offense tomorrow.

Two unrelated notes: Graham gamely defended the work of the Gang of 14 in pushing through judicial nominees, vowed that the Republicans would turn up the heat since the Democrats have now slowed confirmations to less-than-a-crawl, and stressed that judicial nominations and the Supreme Court will be key issues in the race. Second, and more interestingly, he let on that there was a “committee” working on McCain’s VP pick (who is on it he wouldn’t say) and joked there would be better picks than him, while emphasizing that no one votes for the VP.