Getting out would be disaster
Democrats can’t come up with a formal unified stance on Iraq, but it’s all too clear what most of the party’s leaders want: out. And soon. It would be a disaster for America if they prevailed.
Iraq has finally installed a full government that is fighting to establish order against multiple homicidal enemies. Millions of ordinary Iraqis have risked death to vote — a testament to their desire for democracy. Yet Democrats want to pull the plug and abandon them.
President Bush reported following his surprise visit with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki this week that Iraq’s leaders are “deeply concerned that the stability provided by the coalition forces will be removed and there’ll be a vacuum. And they’re concerned about what gets into the vacuum.”
Bush said, “I assured them that we will keep our commitment” but added, “I also made it clear to them that in order for us to keep our commitment and be successful, they themselves have to do some hard things. They themselves have to set an agenda. They themselves have to get some things accomplished.”
Clearly, if there’s any hope for success in Iraq — that is, the establishment of a stable, pro-Western democracy — it depends principally on the Iraqis’ ability to control sectarian strife, to cleanse the police and army of ethnic militias, to win the war against Saddamist insurgents and Islamic jihadists, and to establish an effective, nationally representative government.
It’s a gigantic order, and it may prove impossible. Yet any prospect for success will vanish if Iraqis get the idea that the United States will withdraw its forces from the country before Iraqis can replace them.
Murderous thugs will fill the vacuum. Civil war certainly will ensue, and the entire Gulf region will be destabilized.
True, as Democrats devoutly wish, Bush will go down as a failed president. But America also will suffer a catastrophic strategic defeat, probably resulting in domination of the region by a nuclear-armed Iran. It’s a future no Democratic presidential prospect should want to inherit.
Yet, Democratic leaders are falling all over themselves to hasten the process. They disagree about whether to set a deadline for withdrawal — and, if so, what the deadline should be — but the overwhelming consensus is for withdrawal, not commitment to victory.
To her credit, the party’s 2008 frontrunner, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., withstood boos and hisses from the Take Back lefties by saying it isn’t “smart strategy” or “in the best interests of our troops” to set a “date certain.”
On the other hand, she said it’s also not “smart” for “the president to continue with his open-ended commitment.” She did not say what strategy she favors — something a prospective president ought to do.
Democratic leaders certainly are responding to the party’s rank-and-file. In the latest Gallup Poll, 24 percent of Democrats (and 17 percent of the total electorate) favor immediate withdrawal, and 47 percent (and 32 percent of all voters) want all U.S. troops out within 12 months.
A minuscule 6 percent of voters support the position of Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., that the United States needs to send more troops.
A compelling case has been made by some hawkish intellectuals, including Frederick Kagan of the American Enterprise Institute, that the United States should temporarily increase its forces for an offensive to help Iraqis clear and hold Baghdad and nearby insurgent strongholds.
Republicans plan to brand Democrats as “the party of cut and run” in the election this fall, but that’s not what the party should fear the most. Rather, it’s the prospect that the United States will be defeated in Iraq and a Democratic president will have to deal with the consequences.
Morton Kondracke is executive editor of Roll Call, the newspaper of Capitol Hill.