The NYT's David Sanger has noticed what was apparent before the mid-term election, and confirmed by the leadership election that followed.
"Bring Them Home Now" was never more than petulant wishful thinking.
Nobody likes what is happening in Iraq. But nobody, except on the extreme Kerry-Murtha fringe and points left of there, wants to leave. Americans do not want to abandon Iraq and the Iraqi people. They do not want to spit on the graves of the American dead. Not again. They do not want to lose this fight. Isolationist, inward-focused America may even be starting to get that it is bigger than Saddam, WMD, what happened on one day in September of 2001 and everything that it has been about.
The Bush administration and Rumsfeld have been rightly criticized for going to war without a plan for the aftermath. The biggest critics of that failure, the Democrats, are ironically guilty of it. Having won on an exuberant "We Want Out" platform, they had no plan. They did not in fact win the election. The Republicans lost it, and only by a narrow margin. Perhaps, though it is hard to give them too much credit, given their performance over the last few years, the Democratic leadership even realized it was a cynical and bankrupt platform as they worked it. I say "perhaps" and "it is hard to give them too much credit," because although it has been reported they purposefully avoided stating any detailed strategy for Iraq, and purposefully limited themselves to the attack, Pelosi's support for Murtha as majority leader showed where her true allegiance lay.
The good news is, President Bush may be beginning to recognize that he is still president. He had his shock, he is readjusting, and we can only hope, is getting ready to act.
We still need to wait for this farce of an Iraq Study Group to come out with what Sanger is rightly calling the "cut-and-walk" plan. The president has promised to hear them. And it may be his patience will pay off.
Because everyone has been given enough time to reflect, and increasingly, it is clear a lot of people are beginning to recognize there is no substitute for success in Iraq.
Update:
Ace astutely observes: If you want to ask Ahmadinejad for favors,
what do you want to give him?
Don Surber notes that Jim Baker is gonna have to be a heck of a salesman to convince Bush that Iraq isn't worth saving.
Friday, December 1, 2006
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3 comments:
it is clear everyone is beginning to recognize there is no substitute for success in Iraq.
Hear, hear! I even believe that once the jihadis realize we aren't going to turn tail, some of the violence in Iraq will abate, as they try to regroup in other countries.
I wish I could be as optomistic as you, Jules about what Bush is doing. "One swallow," and one speech given in the flush of talks with the Iraqi prime minister does not a "spring make." I agree with you that the American people and the military don't want another "evacuation of Saigon" picture to occur in Iraq, but I'm not so sure our president and congress have the cajones for a stay. Unfortunately, they're the ones who make the policy and the people for the most part remain silent.
I'm a little mystified that the incoming Democratic majority realizes that retreat is a bad idea. They won, after all, and they have a vague notion they won because of Iraq...and their position on Iraq was "get out of it." So why the sudden outbreak of good sense?
I know, I know...they want the presidency in 2008. But it's almost like they realize how far to the left of the electorate they are. And I never gave them that much credit before.
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