[S]upport for Iraq is dropping fast. Personally, I don't favor setting timetables for withdrawing or even withdrawing at this point. Civil war would be too horrific. But dear Lord, we really have the tiger by the ears here. We can't win without more troops, as this NYT article shows in painful detail. Yet, we are unwilling to send in more troops. The military is hemorrhaging recruits. The insurgency is gaining. We have 130,000 troops trying to patrol 24 million - and the coalition is pulling out. At this rate, we will lose the war. And at this point, we have absolutely no strategy other than hoping that the insurgency will stop. And the American people are beginning to sense it - at the very same time the DSM hit the news.
I agree with Publius--we can't withdraw now, the civil war would be catastrophic and the US would be permanently crippled in its democratization efforts (no, I don't think we are permanently crippled already). But there's a bind here for Democrats. On the one hand, I think it must be awfully tempting to jump back on the "bash Iraq" train. After all, the GOP has no credibility on the matter any more, and the growing insurgency (oh I'm sorry, I meant to write "last throes") is demoralizing both the general public and the military at large. Frankly, to say post-war Iraq is a failure that can be laid at Bush's feet is not an exaggeration, and its pretty tough to tell Democrats not to take the fat target sitting in front of them.
Furthermore, the normal factors that would check Democrats from drinking the withdrawal koolaid don't seem to be operating here. The thing Democrats fear more than anything else, especially after the fiascos of '02/04, is to be tagged as soft on the military. So aside from the firebrands, they tend to shy away from overt positions which suggest they don't care about security. It's important to note, however, that unless there is a substantial paradigm shift in American politics, the left can never get beyond "neutral" on this issue. Recall the period leading up to the last election. Democrats had supported wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, supported the 9/11 commission (Bush opposed), wrote legislation authorizing the Department of Homeland Security (Bush opposed), and pushed for billions of dollars in additional national security funding (Bush opposed, successful). By any objective stance, the Democrats, as a party (as opposed to John Doe Dean Volunteer), were more pro-security than the GOP. Yet the Dems reaped no benefits, indeed, the prevailing conception was that they were weak, spineless, and wussy. At some point, Democrats are going to decide that being pro-security isn't gaining them any political benefits, and that will make the Peacenik wing of the party far more powerful.
The other problem is that even if the Democrats aren't ready to abandon the pro-security stance outright, the issue of Iraq is so hot right now it might even prove to be a disadvantage if they vow to stay the course. Normally, the only risk Democrats face from being too tough on security is a few Michael Moore lookalikes voting for Nader. This is annoying, but outside something crazy like confused Jews in Florida, it isn't likely to be fatal. But right now, it isn't just the left who wants to see us get out, it's the mainstream of the political spectrum that is becoming disenchanted, and the Democrats cannot afford to let the center vent its anger on endangered incumbents. Ironically enough, Bush's weakening stature may help the GOP here, because Republican candidates won't feel as compelled to toe the party line and might start to murmur about getting out themselves. Since GOP foreign policy roots lie more heavily within the Realist School than the Neo-Conservative one, this is not too far-fetched.
In a way, this is a masterful stroke by President Bush. Even his blunder is going to aid him politically, as it places Democrats in an impossible situation, with a political opportunity they can't pass up that will invariably lead to geopolitical consequences they can't escape the blame for. Of course, its a dark victory, because it comes in the wake of Bush's greatest failure on his highest profile project. But it's always seemed like Bush cared more about hurting Democrats than helping the country anyway.
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