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How many foreign policy mistakes can Democrats make?
When something finally goes right in Iraq and the U.S. finds a way to withdraw with honor, Bush will be able to say, you see, I was right all along for staying the course, and all those wishy-washy Democrats showed their true colors when they wanted to pull out early.
No matter how venal and wrong the Iraq war was, the U.S. can't invade a country, turn it into a complete mess and then walk away and wash our hands of it because we don't like the results. As someone wrote before the war, "You break it, you own it." It's our mess now, and it would be an even bigger foreign policy disaster for us to turn our backs on it and not assume responsibility for screwing it up in the first place.
Yes, things can still go right in Iraq. Just as perceptions turned around when Iraqis held a successful election, there could still be a deal on a constitution or a successful negotiation with the Sunni tribes that would drive a wedge between them and the foreign insurgents, and perceptions would change just as radically. This time, if anything at all goes right, Bush & Co. will seize on any excuse to get our asses out of there, and the Democrats will be left with egg all over their faces.
As much as I hated Bush's lying, smirking rationale in last night's speech, I was even more disturbed by the virtually universal Democratic response that we need a deadline or plan or strategy for getting out. We shouldn't allow our disgust at Bush's unnecessary/illegal foreign adventures to get in the way of supporting our military's -- and, yes, our President's -- attempts to gain control of the situation, while still pointing out that we never should have gone in, in the first place.
Once again, the Democrats will end up looking craven and weak on foreign policy, while Bush comes out looking strong and avoids paying the price for one of the most unjustifiable if not shameful wars in American history.
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Liked your post.
The operative cliche would be "Two wrongs don't make a right". The war was wrong in the first place, and to leave irresponsibly would just compound that mistake. Much of the blame for the war starting with such high approval should go to our media who ate what was offered for the most part without scrutinizing enough the admin.'s dubious whole-cloth claims and linkages. That said, I think a message of "This is the wrong war, for the wrong reasons, but we must win it" is THE message for Dems in moderate districts, not the get out of Iraq stuff.
June 29, 2005 7:59 PM | Reply | Permalink