Iraq

It is difficult for me to see how the Democrats’ latest position can be defended. Joe Lieberman calls his party’s position “sabotage” (more on Lieberman later), Mitch McConnell calls it “the surest way to guarantee defeat,” and National Review dismembers the logic of Chuck Hagel and friends limb by limb.

The crux is this: It can’t seriously be disputed that a US withdrawal would worsen the sectarian and Sunni-insurgent violence in Iraq. It used to be that John Murtha and others would argue that if we just left, peace would break out from Damascus to Tehran, but lately even they have given up on that nonsense. So if violence will spiral out of control, then why is this a good plan?

It is equally perplexing how we would be able to muster effective anti-insurgency military strikes in a post-occupation phase, which all Democrats are talking up, given the difficulty with which we can pull this off now.  With 170,000 troops in country and with a tight working relationship with the Iraqi government, we still have to pull teeth to get approval. Imagine if we had a small force holed up in the Green Zone wanting to launch a strike against some cell out in the hinterlands of Iraq? Do you think we could get approval? And would this strike be in any way successful if we had to go through all this?

This is no longer about “the Iraq War.” Nor is this Vietnam, where full warfare raged throughout. Instead, this is like any number of countries today struggling to stave off Islamist radicals, tamp down terrorism, increase freedom, and is asking for our help. Should we help them or not? Democrats want us to be “fully engaged” in N. Korea, with Iran, and almost everywhere else, none more so than in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Yet they argue that we should abandon and ignore Iraq.  

As far as I know, this is the first time in American history that a Congress has passed a bill with detailed instructions directed at generals regarding troop movements during a war, which is almost certainly unconstitutional. It is is surely the first time that such a bill passed while also containing $25 million for spinach growers and $75 million for peanut storage. Please wake me when the cute lil’ Democrats offer a real Iraq plan. And in the meantime, can one of the resident Democrats here please come out against this garbage?