Neo-neocon writes at Pajamas Media:
Some Democrats in Congress were for the Iraq war before they were against it. But that was before some of them were for it again—at least, sort of.
If that sounds confusing, just think how confusing it must be for them. A number of those Democrats who originally voted to invade Iraq but then opposed the surge back in January—and even a few who had opposed the invasion of Iraq from the start—have been doing some fairly energetic scrambling lately to position themselves.
Initially their post-2006 election strategy seemed simple: let the Bush administration go for the surge, which was doomed to failure. At the same time deplore it and try to prevent it (or end it prematurely) by presenting him with legislation calling for troop withdrawal, early deadlines, and/or funding reductions.
The first course of action would allow its proponents to say “we told you so†when the surge inevitably failed. The second might placate the antiwar Democratic base even if Bush managed to withstand the pressure to withdraw. On the other hand, if successful in forcing an early pullout, the second strategy would mean that the spectacle of the bitter end in Iraq would come on Bush’s watch, where it rightly belonged.
But something funny happened on the way to General Petraeus’s September 2007 report to Congress: the surge begin to work.
And now the Democrats face a different prospect if the trend continues: they may have to acknowledge that they were wrong in opposing the surge (in certain cases, in writing it off before it truly began). They might even lose the 2008 election as a result. Or, if victorious, they would have to make tough decisions about how to prosecute the rest of the war. If the latter occurs they will, ironically, find themselves in what might be called “the Nixon positionâ€â€”that is, they’ll have to decide how to finish a difficult war that another party’s administration began.
I agree with the basic point of neo-neocon: that, suddenly, we see good news coming from Iraq and that the Democrats might be forced to change their position, at least a bit. One of the people who will have some room for change is, of course, Hillary Clinton. She will be able to go back, slowly, to her original position. Besides, Democrats can always point out that it took so long because of the mistakes made by Bush et al. Instead of doing that, however, they seem to target al-Maliki these days. For a while, that seemed to be a winner, until today when reports came out that al-Maliki got Kurdish, Shiite and Sunni leaders to unite and to make deals on some major issues. Suddenly, the situation had changed again.
Of course, it is way too early to declare success: but what one can declare is that progress has been made in the last couple of months and that, perhaps, just perhaps, the new strategy might actually pay off (something I did not expect either). The question is now whether people will choose to play political games, or whether they will look at the situation with an open-mind and a willingness to change their opinions if the reality on the ground changes as well.
In the end, whomever wins the presidency in 08, he or she will inherit the Iraq War. Bush will not withdraw the American troops from Iraq – perhaps a couple (he must), but certainly not all. And what then? What will the Democrats do once in power if progress has indeed been made and if it appears that more progress is likely to be made as long as the US keeps a significant amount of troops in Iraq? Again, it seems to me that the Democrat who will be least scared by recent developments is Hillary Clinton. She will be able to flip-flop a bit, without truly flip-flopping.
Question: if the situation in Iraq changes, how will this influence the Republican nomination? Will John McCain’s numbers in the polls improve?
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