THE DEMOCRATS' 2006 election strategy regarding the war in Iraq has begun to emerge. According to the Washington Post, key Democratic operatives and legislators "are slowly coalescing around a political plan [that] would involve setting a broad time frame for drawing down U.S. troops and blaming Bush for misleading the country into a war without a victory plan." Their aim is to "provide the party enough maneuvering room to allow Democrats to adjust their position as conditions in Iraq change." This strategy, the Post explains, is the product of fear that advocating a prompt withdrawal from Iraq would jeopardize the party's chances of succeeding in 2006. Thus, for the third straight election, mainstream Democrats intend to craft their position on matters of war and peace based on political calculation, not their view of the national interest.
As the slow motion cut-and-run strategy gains political steam, liberal think-tanks and Clinton-era security analysts are providing their blessing. For example, in late November former White House national security adviser Richard Clarke called for the United States to announce that the final withdrawal of American troops from Iraq will occur by the end of 2007. Lawrence Korb of the Center for American Progress, the think tank created by Democratic operative John Podesta, is also advocating a phased withdrawal pursuant to a similar timetable. Yet just this past June, before the Democratic strategy had begun to "coalesce," Korb stated that such a timetable would be "a mistake."
With
their latest Iraq policy gyration, and with public support for the war waning, Democrats finally have the potential to affect policy. In 2002, many Democrats manifested their opportunism by voting for a war they didn't want--a loathsome act, but one that did not threaten to drive policy. In 2004, when the Democrat standard-bearer flip-flopped on the war, he merely provided comic relief. But with the formulation of their "quit later" plan, the Democrats' opportunistic split-the-baby impulse has spawned a distinctive policy alternative.
And what a policy alternative it is. Only Democratic legislators and liberal think tank denizens could rally around the concept of announcing to our enemies that we will fight until a certain date (or year) and then quit. Even strident anti-war Democrat Bob Graham has recognized the absurdity of advising our enemy of the time frame in which we intend to cut-and-run. Surely no country in history has ever embraced such an approach to warfare. War is not a government program that can be managed according to a fixed schedule. Rather, it is a struggle in which one's next move must always be contingent on current reality, not pre-established timetables.
DEMOCRATS UNDERSTAND this logic as clearly as the Bush administration does. Indeed, their political strategy has been designed, in the Washington Post's words, "to provide the party enough maneuvering room to allow Democrats to adjust their position as conditions in Iraq change." Yet when it comes to the nation's military strategy, the Democrats propose to withhold such maneuvering room from the commander-in-chief and our armed forces.
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