Right Wing Nut House

This article originally appears in The American Thinker.

If you look very closely, you can see patches of ice forming along the banks of the River Styx. Charon, the ferryman, is seriously contemplating trading in his flat bottomed boat for an ice breaker while he worries that soon, some of the recently departed will be able to simply walk across the river without paying him and enter the afterlife, leaving the ferryman holding the bag so to speak.

In fact, there’s a decided chill in the air in hell these days. I say this because Hillary Clinton’s recent comments about Iraq actually make some sense and are worthy of serious consideration.

Now before many of my right-leaning friends stage an intervention and try to get me to voluntarily commit myself for 6 months of aromatherapy, let me make matters worse by saying I don’t believe that what Hillary is trying to accomplish is necessarily a poll-driven exercise in moderation. In fact, while her continued support for the war has more qualifiers than a pill bottle’s warning label, I would like to point out that she is opposed to a rigid timetable for withdrawal and in support of pretty much the same formula for victory that President Bush has recently outlined.

If this is a calculated move on her part to make herself more acceptable to the broad middle in American politics, I should remind you that she is agreeing with a President with a 42% approval rating, a man who demonstrably is in trouble with those same middle of the road Americans that are absolutely necessary to achieve victory in any race for the White House.

And Clinton has demonstrated a refreshing independence from what should be her natural base - the hard left Democrats who now stalk her fundraisers with protest signs against the Iraq war. The anger generated among this constituency for her continued support of the war has some Democratic strategists wondering whether Senator Clinton is hurting her chances to win the nomination. These very same activists hurling invective at the former First Lady are usually the determining factor in who the Democrats nominate for President every four years. And many of them have made it crystal clear that any candidate who voted for the war’s authorization need not come ’round at primary time, hat in hand, trying to win their affections.

Those activists overstate their influence with Hillary. Given her rock star status and proven ability to raise huge sums of money, if Senator Clinton chooses to run in 2008 I daresay she will be able to call upon the best and brightest in the Democratic party to staff her campaign as well as energize enough of the base to overcome the opposition of the cut-and-run crowd.

So if Hillary’s recent statements of support for continuing the war through as she has said, to an “honorable” victory aren’t purely a matter of repositioning herself toward the middle, it could very well be that the wife of the greatest prevaricator to ever occupy the White House could, in fact, mean what she says on Iraq.

And why not? Clinton’s statements before a womans group this past Monday sounded like any reasonable American defending our commitment to Iraq:

The New York Democrat said she respects Rep. Jack Murtha, D-Pa., the Vietnam veteran and hawkish ex-Marine who last week called for an immediate troop pullout. But she added: “I think that would cause more problems for us in America.”

“It will matter to us if Iraq totally collapses into civil war, if it becomes a failed state the way Afghanistan was, where terrorists are free to basically set up camp and launch attacks against us,” she said.

If that sounds familiar, it’s because that is exactly what the President has been saying for more than two years.

And her critique of the intelligence fiasco leading up to the war, while reliably anti-Bush, stops well short of the “Bush lied” theme adopted by many of the more radical elements in her party:

“I take responsibility for my vote, and I, along with a majority of Americans, expect the president and his administration to take responsibility for the false assurances, faulty evidence and mismanagement of the war…”

And when she visited Iraq last summer, she certainly didn’t sound like a defeatist:

“The concerted effort to disrupt the elections was an abject failure. Not one polling place was shut down or overrun,” Clinton told reporters inside the U.S.-protected Green Zone, a sprawling complex of sandbagged buildings surrounded by blast walls and tanks. The zone is home to the Iraqi government and the U.S. Embassy…

…The fact that you have these suicide bombers now, wreaking such hatred and violence while people pray, is to me, an indication of their failure,” Clinton said.

I think it safe to say that Hillary Clinton, while remaining a fiercely partisan Democrat, has been one of President Bush’s more reliable Democratic supporters of his war policies. Considering the statements and actions of some other Democrats who voted for the war like John Kerry and John Edwards, Hillary’s position on Iraq has been a model of bi-partisan cooperation. She said as much in her speech on Monday:

She blamed the problems facing the United States in Iraq on “poor decision-making by the administration,” but added: “My view is we have to work together to fix these problems.”

The fact that Mrs. Clinton’s steady support for the war flies in the face of the conventional wisdom on the right that her advocacy is a cynical move toward the political center does a disservice, I believe, both to her and other Democrats that the President needs desperately to maintain our commitment to Iraq. If the longshot chances of the Democrats to win back the Senate next year come to fruition, the President is going to need the support of Senator Clinton and others to prevent the cut and run Democrats from taking over Iraq policy.

And even if the Republicans, as expected, maintain control of both Houses of Congress, Hillary Clinton’s voice will be even more important given the media attention that will begin in anticipation of the 2008 Presidential race.

Does this mean that conservatives may want to consider supporting Hillary for President in 2008? Don’t worry, the weather forecast for hell is calling for drastically warming temperatures followed by a heat wave in the very near future.

UPDATE

Before I get a single email or comment about it, I will admit that yes, dear readers, I know very well that Charon the ferryman took people across the River Acheron and not Styx but hey! The mis-identification is indelibly etched into popular culture so I decided to take advantage of it.

How’s that for pre-emptive defense?

The speech given by President Bush at the Naval Academy yesterday outlining his plan for victory in Iraq was a brilliant exposition of both a rationale for our being there as well as clear strategy for victory. The President always seems to rise to the occasion during these set-piece talks and as John Hindraker points out (as well as Norman Podhoretz) Bush’s careful annunciation of his vision during these speeches has been one of the more remarkable aspects of his presidency. Perhaps no President since Wilson has spent as much time and effort in communicating an overall strategic outlook about what America’s place in the world should be and how the forces of history can be tapped to aid us in our war against the fanatical Islamists who seek to destroy us.

But the speech, like other efforts by the President recently, is falling on deaf ears. This is mostly his fault as he has allowed his political opponents to construct an Iraq narrative (almost totally at odds with the reality of what is happening on the ground) that has now taken hold with the great majority of the American people. I say it is the President’s fault because Bush has failed in the #1 area where Presidents - especially a President at war - simply cannot afford to fail; he has failed to forcefully and consistently remind the American people of why we are in Iraq and what is at stake if we lose. Instead, for months he ceded the job to his surrogates, not all of whom did he or his administration credit not to mention muddying the waters considerably regarding the strength of our commitment to victory.

It was only when Congress itself indicated a desire to usurp his authority as Commander in Chief by attempting to manage the war from Capitol Hill did the President rouse himself. First, with a defense of his actions prior to going to war and now a clear delineation of what constitutes victory, the President has finally come out from behind his desk and begun to fight.

It is unclear as to how the situation can be retrieved at this point. So much of his opponent’s narrative has been accepted as fact - we’re losing, we can’t win, Bush lied, the place is a complete mess, etc. - that only some dramatic event on the ground in Iraq such as some insurgent groups giving up and agreeing to work within a democratic framework will change the dynamic of the national conversation on the war and allow for revision of “conventional wisdom.”

Part of the problem is the President’s credibility which has been successfully challenged by his political opponents with plenty of assistance from the media. The President’s trustworthiness which was one of his strengths in last year’s election, has fallen like a stone in recent polls, hovering around 40% from a high last November in the upper 50’s. The sad fact is that the American people do not believe or trust the President at this point. History has shown that a President’s credibility can, in fact, be resurrected but that it takes time. And unless the President ’s pronouncements on Iraq can be seen as reflecting what is truly going on there, the President is in danger of losing at least the Senate and possibly even the House in next year’s elections.

So despite a brilliant speech, the President may just as well have been giving it to an empty room. Until other factors working against the President can be blunted, support for the war and for victory in Iraq will be held hostage to the forces of negativism, defeatism, and political posturing.

A sad state of affairs, that. But one that the President has mostly himself to blame.

Dealing with the political realities in both Washington and the country at large, the Administration is subtly but clearly beginning to revamp its rhetoric on Iraq. While still stressing that there will be no timetable for withdrawal, the President is now going beyond the generalities offered in the past to lay down specific goals to be achieved by the civilian and military elements in Iraq before the US could safely begin to dramatically draw down its forces.

The White House said that the strategy to be outlined Wednesday was not new, but that it had never been assembled into a single unclassified document. As the 27-page booklet was described by administration officials, much of it sounded like a list of goals for Iraq’s military, political and economic development rather than new prescriptions on how to accomplish the job.

The Pentagon now spends $6 billion a month to sustain the American military presence in Iraq. A senior administration official said Mr. Bush’s ultimate goal, to which he assigned no schedule, is to move to a “smaller, more lethal” American force that “can be just as successful.”

It is unclear how much of that vision Mr. Bush will explicitly describe Wednesday, in the first of four speeches about the Iraqi transition that he plans to give before the election of a long-term Iraqi government on Dec. 15.

Why the Times chooses to complain that there are no “new prescriptions on how to accomplish the job” of building up the Iraqi civilian and military is a mystery. Surely achieving these goals is almost totally dependent on the Iraqis themselves. We can train the forces to the best of our abilities but as much as working toward a stable, democratic government, it will be the Iraqis themselves who set the pace, not Americans.

That pace is quickening as this AP report points out:

Lt. Col. Fred Wellman, a spokesman in Baghdad for the U.S. command that is responsible for the training and equipping of Iraqi security forces, said approximately 130 Iraqi army and special police battalions are fighting the insurgency, of which about 45 are rated as “in the lead,” with varying degrees of reliance on U.S. support.

The exact numbers are classified as secret, but the 45 figure is about five higher than the number given on Nov. 7 at a briefing by Lt. Gen. David Petraeus, who previously led the training mission. It is about 10 higher than the figure Gen. Petraeus offered at a Pentagon briefing on Oct. 5.

An Iraqi battalion usually numbers between 700 and 800 soldiers.

As another measure of progress, Col. Wellman said about 33 Iraqi security battalions are now in charge of their own “battle space,” including parts of Baghdad. That figure was at 24 in late October. Col. Wellman said it stood at three in March.

Also, American forces have pulled out of 30 “forward operating bases” inside Iraq, of which 16 have been transferred to Iraqi security forces. The most recent and widely publicized was a large base near Tikrit, which U.S. forces had used as a division headquarters since shortly after the fall of Baghdad in April 2003.

Subtly changing the focus of their rhetoric on Iraq is an acknowledgment that the constant hammering by Democrats on the Administration’s war policies are beginning to have an effect outside of Washington. Even the President’s strongest supporters have been urging him to clarify what would constitute victory in Iraq since, as seems likely, the terrorists and insurgents will continue to oppose the Iraqi government for years to come. By listing clear and achievable goals for the Iraqi government and military, the Administration is; 1) reasserting dominance over Congress when it comes to guiding the war effort; and 2) attempting to steer the focus of debate on the war away from the cut and run crowd and toward a clear prescription for victory.

There may be those who will be unsatisfied with the President’s speech in that he will stop short in saying that all terrorists in Iraq must be destroyed before America draws down its forces significantly. The problem, according to this report written by two respected Army analysts, is that scenario is totally unrealistic:

In their new 60-page report, veteran Middle East scholar Terrill and Crane, director of the Army Military History Institute, say a U.S. troop presence in Iraq probably cannot be sustained more than three years further. Meantime, they write:

–”It appears increasingly unlikely that U.S., Iraqi and coalition forces will crush the insurgency prior to the beginning of a phased U.S. and coalition withdrawal.”

–”It is no longer clear that the United States will be able to create (Iraqi) military and police forces that can secure the entire country no matter how long U.S. forces remain.”

–And ”the United States may also have to scale back its expectations for Iraq’s political future,” by accepting a relatively stable but undemocratic state as preferable to a civil war among Iraq’s ethnic and religious factions.

”U.S. vital interests have never demanded a democratic state in Iraq before 2003,” they note

What kind of democracy we leave behind will be determined by how successful the various factions in Iraq are at working together. The amazing thing is that to date, every deadline set for the Iraqis to move forward with elections and writing the constitution has been met. Expectations have been exceeded which makes the pessimism in that report ring a little hollow. Nevertheless, there will come a time where our very presence becomes a zero sum game, when American troops are actually fueling a dying insurgency that could better be handled by Iraqi forces. That, of course, is Bush’s goal. The trick will be in recognizing when that point is reached and leave Iraq to continue the decades long process of building a peaceful, democratic society.

The State Department says Hizballah is a terrorist group. So do the Israelis who in the past few days have responded to rocket attacks and infiltrations by the Iranian-supported militia by bombing their positions on the Blue Line. The UN - that’s right, the United Nations - has gone so far as to blame Hizballah for the border trouble, saying that the clashes “were initiated by Hezbollah from the Lebanese side, and which quickly spread along the entire Blue Line.” (HT: John Bolton).

But in Lebanon, a country struggling to build a democracy despite enormous problems, Hizballah is a power center. Holding 23 seats in the 128 seat Lebanese Parliament along with another 23 seats held by supporters of a Hizballah-Amal alliance in the southern part of the country, Hizballah is seen as a protector, a bulwark against “Israeli aggression.” They are also seen as a benevolent social services organization because of their work in building hospitals, clinics, schools, and food banks throughout the south of the country.

During the Syrian occupation, Hizballah and the Shi’ite Amal militia were the only groups allowed to carry arms. They cooperated with Syrian intelligence, acting as proxies in Syria’s low intensity conflict with the Israelis. And lately, they have emerged as a stumbling block to the formation of a government that would unify all the factions and give the “Cedar Revolution” a chance to succeed.

The reason is UN Resolution 1559 that stipulates all sectarian militias be disarmed. Hizballah has refused saying they are the “resistance” to Israeli “aggression” and have earned the right to defend Lebanon as they see fit.

This position is complicating the delicate dance going on between the various factions who came together in the spring and summer to form an unbeatable electoral block that has succeeded in kicking out the Syrians and beginning the process of reforming the constitution. The fact is, there is very little trust between the Future Movement, which is what the broad based coalition of Christians, Shi’ites, Druze, Armenians, and Maronites call themselves and the so-called “Party of God” that receives tens of millions of dollars from Iran:

Those who question Hizbullah’s loyalty to Lebanon must show their credentials first, Hizbullah Secretary General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said on Friday in his toughest response yet to critics who believe the resistance acts upon Syrian and Iranian orders. Nasrallah was speaking to a mass rally in Beirut’s southern suburbs, gathered for a funeral procession for the three resistance fighters killed during Monday’s clashes with Israeli troops.

“While encouraging dialog and discussion,” the cleric stressed “the resistance will not tolerate being named a traitor or an agent for foreign countries.”

Saad Hariri, son of the assassinated former Prime Minister, along with the Lebanese Premier Fouad Siniora not only don’t trust Hizballah, but worry about international support if the terrorist group refuses to lay down its arms or incorporate itself into the Lebanese regular army:

Political sources close to these complex relations said Hizbullah believes Hariri’s commitment to the resistance is shaky. A few days ago Hizbullah asked him for a straightforward clarification about his stand toward the resistance. Hariri’s assertion from Curacao Wednesday that the resistance helped free an important part of Lebanese territory and that its disarmament could be achieved only through internal dialog were primarily a response to this message, aimed at appeasing Hizbullah’s worries.

But even these words did not fully convince the resistance, which found them in contradiction with what it has been hearing from Premier Fouad Siniora, particularly his insistence Lebanon cannot confront the international community by refusing to comply with UN Security Resolution 1559.

And herein lies the big trap for America. As much as the PLO, Hizballah has integrated itself into Lebanese society. In the southern part of the country, their writ is law. The central government is tolerated only so far as they support the “resistance.”

And why not? Ordinary people in that part of Lebanon have literally been under the gun for more than a quarter of a century. Clashes between the Israelis and Hizballah (as well as the PLO and Amal) are a regular occurrence. Hizballah is welcomed as both protector and nanny since most of what passes for social programs are administered by representatives of the group. Support for Syria’s occupation was also strongest here for many of the same reasons.

Trying to “disarm” Hizballah and make them work in some kind of constitutional framework is a sticky matter indeed. All depends on the commitment of Hizbullah Secretary General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah to the democratic process. But is Nasrallah a free agent? Or is he simply a tool of the radicals in Tehran?

One thing is certain; Hizballah favors the destruction of the state of Israel. This, above all else, complicates both its internal relations with some Lebanese factions like the Free Patriotic Movement headed up by General Michael Aoun and some of the more secular oriented groups like Hariri’s Future Movement as well as relations with the EU and the US. The Administration has said that it would welcome a disarmed Hizballah into the Lebanese government although how this can be reconciled with their designation as a terrorist group isn’t clear.

Can any government formed with Hizballah have normal relations with Israel? And a larger question; can there be democracy in any Middle Eastern Country that doesn’t accept Israel’s right to exist?

As long as Israel is out there being portrayed as the bogeyman, demagogues will be able to use the democratic process to come to power and threaten the Jewish state. The resulting reaction by Israel to protect itself will only confirm the worst fears of people who are being led by men whose anti-Israel, anti-western bias generates such hatred. Until it becomes a political liability to use the rhetoric of hate against Israel, there will be men willing to seek power based on that hate.

Real freedom for the people of Lebanon is still an uphill struggle. Immense problems remain regarding a new constitution that would rid itself of the so-called “confessional” system that apportions seats in parliament and political offices based on religion. The problem of disarming Hizballah is almost a sideshow to the real drama being played out between the various actors who represent the parties, the religions, the clans, and the warlords who to this day have yet to figure out how to live together in peace.

Here’s hoping that both the people of Lebanon and the world exhibit patience with this process. We’re going to need it.

Ever since fanatical Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was installed by the Guardian Council last June via a questionable election, nearly every step taken by the former Commander of the Revolutionary Guard’s foreign assassination outfit has been designed to either solidify his hold on power by purging those in the Iranian government deemed not “revolutionary” enough or making it clear that he seeks confrontation with the west and Israel over the Iranian nuclear program.

Many analysts questioned Ahmadinejad’s victory in the runoff election against long time Iranian politico Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani whose loss to the little known former mayor of Tehran occurred under suspicious circumstances. Prior to the run-off, there were several charges of corruption, including the unleashing of 300,000 Revolutionary Guards to mobilize support for Ahmadinejad. Two newspapers who dared to print a letter outlining the charges from a reformist politician were summarily shut down. Then, in the subsequent run-off between Rafsanjani and Ahmadinejad, ballot box irregularities were reported as a sizable segment of the population boycotted the election. Polling places that were deserted on the day of the election ended up showing thousands of ballots cast for the former hard-line mayor.

It is important to understand that the President of Iran is on a very short leash. His decisions must be ratified by Iran’s Supreme Leader who also controls the ruling Guardian Council which has absolute veto power over laws passed by the Iranian parliament as well as access to the big stick in Iranian society; the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC). The Council is made up of 6 clerical members and 6 lawyers, all of whom are appointed by the Supreme Leader. The Council also has absolute authority in matters involving elections, determining who can run and, as we have seen, who wins and who loses.

The Supreme Leader of Iran is Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. A former two-term President during the time Ayatollah Khomeini served in that position, he succeeded to the office upon the death of Khomeini in 1989. Since then, Khamenei has gradually radicalized the Council by appointing hard-line Islamists to the clerical positions. This move has stifled whatever reformist impulses were generated by the election in 2000 in which a group of (relatively) more moderate politicians swept into parliament and the presidency. Former President Mohammad Khatami who was extremely popular among students and some of the more secular parts of Iranian society, ended up being emasculated by the Council who saw to it that even some of the more modest reform proposals were shot down.

It also became apparent that the reform politicians engendered something that the Guardian Council could not deal with; hope for a more secular and freer Iran. Demonstrations - some of them violent - broke out in support for some of Khatami’s proposals which were ruthlessly suppressed by the real power center in Iran; the IRGC. These fanatics are under the direct control of the Supreme Leader who functions as their commander. It would not be too much of a stretch to say that the election of Ahmadinejad was a recognition by the Guardian Council that reformers like Khatami were dangerous to the stability of the Islamic Republic not to mention their own stranglehold on power.

So what are we to make of Ahmadinejad’s actions over the past 5 months? Here’s a partial list of what he has said and what he has done since the election:

* Before even taking office, he said the Islam will conquer the world: “Thanks to the blood of the martyrs, a new Islamic revolution has arisen and the Islamic revolution of 1384 [the current Iranian year] will, if God wills, cut off the roots of injustice in the world,” he said. “The wave of the Islamic revolution will soon reach the entire world.”

* Denied taking part in the takeover of the US embassy in 1979 despite bragging about his involvement on his website.

* Restarted the Iranian nuclear program while negotiating with the EU to curb Iran’s uranium enrichment program.

* Reiterated his belief that “Allah willing, Islam will conquer what? It will conquer all the mountain tops of the world.”

* Continued to support the terrorists killing our troops in Iraq.

* Vowed not to stop the conversion of uranium into bomb-grade material no matter what the Europeans and Americans did.

* Promised to share nuclear technology wit the rest of the Islamic world.

* Promised to to abandon co-operation on nuclear matters if his country was threatened with penalties due to its work on making a nuclear bomb.

* At an anti-Zionist conference, he called for Israel to be “wiped off the map.”

* Defended those remarks and engineered massive protests in support of them.

* Offered a solution to Iran’s stock market crisis by saying that “if we were permitted to hang two or three persons, the problems with the stock exchange would be solved for ever.”

* Continued to purge perceived moderates from his government, especially in the foreign service.

* Has now closed all nuclear sites to UN inspections.

(Very big Hat Tip to Charles Johnson at Little Green Footballs whose website made the previous extremely easy to document).

A cursory examination like the one above of what Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has said and done since his election should make even the most casual of observers sit up and take notice. This is no “business as usual” run of the mill Islamic theocrat. He is a radical anti-Semite, a dyed in the wool America hater, and an experienced terrorist who personally was involved in the July 1989 execution-style murders of Abdul-Rahman Ghassemlou, leader of the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan (which opposed the mullahs’ regime), and two others in an apartment in Vienna.

And very soon - if not already - he will have his finger on a nuclear trigger.

The big question is why? Why would Supreme Leader Khamenei place the future of his country not to mention the world in the hands of someone like Ahmadinejad?

Ignore the mainstream press who have downplayed the more outrageous statements made by this terrorist by saying it is for “domestic political consumption.” Neville Chamberlain said exactly the same thing about Hitler.

The point is this; Ahmadinejad appears to have the experience, the temperament, the zeal, and ideological purity for one thing and one thing only - to confront Israel and the west and go to war if necessary in order to secure the regimes future. And that future and the future of the Islamic world as Iran sees it lies in their building a nuclear arsenal.

With the United States involved in Iraq, with Israel under siege from both the Palestinians and most of the rest of the world, with defeatism and timidity infecting the governments of western Europe, and with the probability that they will soon have nuclear weapons, perhaps (pure speculation alert) the Iranians feel the time is right for confrontation. After all, the military situation heavily favors them at the moment as only a massive invasion would probably be able to slow their march toward acquiring nuclear weapons. Their nuclear sites are not only spread out over many parts of the country, but those sites have also been placed underground making them almost inaccessible to all but the largest bombs in our arsenal.

Ahmadinejad’s election makes sense only in this context. If you are going to opt for confrontation, would you rather have a relative moderate like Rafsanjani who was in favor of negotiation with the west over Iranian nuclear ambitions or an Ahmadinejad who has proven track record as a military commander and has demonstrated himself as tough as nails in negotiations that more and more look like a sham, a stalling tactic while Iran continues to enrich enough uranium to build bombs?

The ball is now in our court. Will we allow Iran to realize its nuclear ambitions? Common sense says no. But in the end, there may not be very much we can do to stop them.

UPDATE: 11/28

The Captain has some sober thoughts on Ahmadinejad’s administration. I think that Ed fails to carry through his analysis to its logical conclusion by not asking the question: Why?

Why would Khamenei support someone like Ahmadinejad whose governing style and rhetoric are so beyond the pale of civil discourse between nations and civil society? Why doesn’t he mind that Iran is becoming increasingly isolated internationally?

I tried to answer that in my post above by speculating that the next few months will be crucial to the regime in that they will likely face military action of some sort either by Israel or the US for their continued instence to develop nuclear weapons. In light of that, isn’t Ahmadinejad the kind of man you want leading Iran?

The Republican sponsored “Sense of the House” resolution that calls for the immediate withdrawal of our troops from Iraq and that will be defeated in a few minutes is a brilliant political maneuver with three major benefits:

1. It gives our troops in the field a boost by showing that the Congress is not going to withdraw them willy-nilly from Iraq.

2. It stops Zarqawi’s victory party in its tracks.

3. It shows the Democrats to be hypocritical fools - an admittedly easy task but one that has been beyond the capabilities of GOP Congressmen.

As John Cole points out, the Dems are screaming bloody murder:

This is what you guys want! You have been telling the public for a year now that we have lost in Iraq, and Armando spends everyday calling for the withdrawal of troops from Iraq, and now we are going to have a vote on it, and you tell your folks not to vote? Gimme a damned break. You want the troops out- here is your damned vote.

Watching CNN, poor Lou Dobbs is acting like some illegal immigrant has come in and sat right down next to him on the set. The pudgy anchor is beside himself, grilling the CNN White House correspondent on whether or not the White House is behind the effort.

And as Cole points out, Kos is acting like an old woman who’s discovered there’s a cockroach in the pound cake:

Funny how the Republicans in the debate keep referring to the “Democrat resolution”, even though they introduced it and it bears ZERO resemblance to the actual Murtha resolution.

Why are Republicans afraid to bring Murtha’s actual resolution up to a vote, rather than this nakedly political piece of shit? And why do they insist on calling their own resolution a “Democrat” resolution?

What a bunch of liars.

Oh, really? I guess when Murtha said this he was talking about some other war:

My plan calls for immediate redeployment of U.S. troops consistent with the safety of U.S. forces, to create a quick reaction force in the region, to create an over-the-horizon presence of Marines, and to diplomatically pursue security and stability in Iraq.

And here’s the guts of the resolution:

RESOLUTION

Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives that the deployment of United States forces in Iraq be terminated immediately.

Resolved, That it is the sense of the House of Representatives that the deployment of United States forces in Iraq be terminated immediately.

Watching the debate has been fun. The Democrats are twisting, twisting, slowly in the wind as Republicans skewer them by reading emails from soldiers at the front pleading with their Congressman to allow them to finish the job.

Not to many military emails from Democrats. Just a lot of twisted, angry faces as Republicans are going to force them to tell their base of Kossacs, Moorites, and Moveoners that all their tough talk about getting out of Iraq is just that - talk. As Polipundit pointed out in this brilliant post this morning, cutting and running may be popular in the liberal salons of New York and Hollywood cocktail parties, but political poison all over the rest of America:

There is a historical parallel we can use for this conclusion: Vietnam.

Americans aren’t quitters. Throughout the Vietnam War - even as 57,000 Americans sacrificed their lives - support for the war remained strong, and antipathy towards “anti-war” protesters remained high. At the height of the conflict, peacenik Democrat presidential nominee George McGovern went down in an electoral defeat of unprecedented magnitude.

Democrats are repeating history.

Like a trout dangling on the end of a hook, Democrats are desperately trying to get away from this political trap set by Republicans. About the only choice they have is whether they want to be served with lemon or lightly breaded and sauteed in olive oil.

This article originally appears in The American Thinker

Forgive me my pessimism today. I made the mistake of reading reaction in the mainstream media to Representative John Murtha’s (D-PA) tearful tirade against the Iraq War on the floor of the House yesterday. The fact that he said the war was “unwinnable” last year apparently isn’t newsworthy. Was it the dramatic image of the old war hero tearing up when talking about his admirable visits to see wounded veterans? If so, why weren’t the images of Iraqis weeping for joy after voting in the first free elections in their lives also considered fodder for the front pages and cable talk shows that now breathlessly report on the latest “turning point” in the American people’s support for the war?

We’ve had so many “turning points” in this war that we’ve damn near gone around in a circle. Why should the lamentations of one Congressman, albeit a respected voice on military matters, cause such a stink? Of course, Murtha’s diatribe has not occurred in a vacuum. It follows closely on the heels of an effort by Republicans in the Senate to try and outdo their Democratic colleagues in proving that election to high office does not necessarily mean one is blessed with common sense and wisdom. In fact, the “Cut And Run But Not As Quickly As Michael Moore Would Have It” version of a “Sense of the Senate” resolution on Iraq supported by Republicans only proves that, quite simply, the words “sense” and “senate” used in the same sentence when referring to that august body is a misnomer.

And don’t forget those poll numbers that show 57% of the American people believe that President Bush misled the country about intelligence in the lead up to the war with a similar majority believing the war was a mistake. Funny, but it never seems to make it into the same paragraph in stories reporting those grim statistics that 2/3 of the country is in favor of staying in Iraq “until the job is done.” That would seem to cut the chocks from underneath the cut and run crowd except their allies in the mainstream press have better things to do than reporting anything that would upset the delicate imbalance they try to maintain when reporting war news.

Murtha may be forgiven his apostasy. The man has served his country in war and peace with a dedication and selflessness rarely seen these days. But so did Marshall Petain. (HT: Ed Morrisey). The French hero of Verdun and head of the collaborationist Vichy government believed that Nazism was the wave of the future and in order for France to survive, cooperation with Hitler seemed to be the most logical course. The fact that he was tragically wrong both about Nazism and the cost to France that such cooperation engendered has made history’s judgment of his actions an object lesson for the Murthas of this world. For like the Nazis, the implacable Islamists currently blowing up our boys in Iraq will attack us wherever and whenever they choose. It doesn’t matter if we are in Iraq, not in Iraq, setting a timetable to pull out, or simply wringing our hands over the whole mess. Their goal is death. Their agenda, mayhem.

It may be that this moment is indeed a turning point of sorts. The inconstancy of the Republican Senate about the war is reflective of something deeper abroad in the land. Call it a crisis of spirit or a loss of confidence on the part of the nation’s political leadership but the sad truth is that the closer we get to outright victory in Iraq with our troops coming home in triumph the more we hear that the effort has been a failure and that only by leaving the field of battle to our enemies can we make the situation right.

The Iraqi government is facing enormous problems. Internal security, civil rights, factionalism, foreign interventionism, sectarianism, infrastructure; the list goes on and on. But forgotten in all of the naysaying and dire warnings of catastrophe is the fact that progress is being made - fitfully and not as quickly as we would like but progress nonetheless - on all of those problems. In just a few weeks, the people of Iraq will hold an election under their newly minted constitution that, on paper, is a marvel of compromise and idealism. What kind of government emerges from these elections may not be very satisfying to the United States. But that is not the point. It will be the kind of government that the Iraqi people want. And that is what more than 2,000 American boys and girls have died trying to establish; a democratically elected government set in the heart of jihad territory. The Iraqis are about ready to spit in the eye of Osama bin Laden and all our weak kneed, faint of heart “nervous nellies” can spout about is how much of a failure the war has been and how we should leave these courageous people to the tender mercies of al Zarqawi and his Merry Band of Beheaders.

Only recently has the President begun to refocus the country’s attention on what is at stake in Iraq, something he should have been doing religiously these past two years but a task in which he has failed miserably. The belief by the White House that the American people wouldn’t believe the lies and distortions about the justifications for the war by his political enemies has proven to be as bad a blunder as the Administration has ever made. Their concurrent strategy of relying on surrogates to define and restate our war aims has also been inadequate. For when it comes right down to it, the American people could give a damn what Republican Party Chairman Ken Mehlman or even a respected Senator like John McCain says about the war. They need to hear it from the President himself.

The White House can perhaps be forgiven for not holding regular press conferences given the temperament and political leanings of the White House press corp. But that doesn’t preclude the President from barnstorming the country, treating the war like a political campaign, hammering his opponents who are calling him a liar while urging, even begging the people for their support. Such a campaign probably wouldn’t have much affect on his opposition - except perhaps to drive them into even more comical fits of apoplexy - but it would almost surely put some backbone into his wavering supporters in the Congress.

Whatever the President does, he must do it now and it must be a sustained effort. One reason for his low poll numbers despite a humming economy, falling gas prices, and real progress in Iraq is the sense among a majority of people that the country “is on the wrong track.” By not getting up on his hind legs and fighting thus leaving the field to his political enemies, the President has allowed the opposition to not only define the issues but also supply a skewed narrative to go with those issues. The President, who has in the past demonstrated a reluctance for the attack, must now fight back as only a President can; by dominating the news day after day from the bully pulpit, shaming his enemies and encouraging his supporters. Otherwise, the tepid support demonstrated by Republicans of all stripes recently will continue with the very real danger that an anti-incumbent backlash in 2006 will cost the Republicans the Senate.

If this is the nadir of the war it is because the President has failed to keep Iraq in the forefront of the nation’s consciousness. The fact that we are in a war for our survival and that Iraq is currently the major front in that conflict makes the President’s reluctance to engage his political enemies all the more troubling. However, it is still not to late to retrieve the situation. The President must demonstrate in a sustained and coherent manner the passion and leadership that he exhibited at the start of the Iraq campaign. His recent speeches would seem to indicate that he understands this which is heartening. But unless his focus remains firmly fixed on a defense of his decisions that took us to war as well as a patient approach to explaining why we must see the task through to victory, he stands to lose even more support in the Congress. In short, he must regain control of the debate over the war.

Following a disastrous defeat for the Union army at Fredericksburg, President Lincoln, for the only time in his Presidency, gave in to a feeling of hopelessness. He covered his face with his hands and said “What will the country think?” The fact is, the country by that time had been conditioned to the fact that the Civil War was going to be a long conflict and that setbacks were inevitable. The reason they were conditioned was because of Lincoln’s steadfast belief in victory and his inspiring defense of his policies.

President Bush has the most powerful bully pulpit on the planet with a megaphone much larger than anything Mr. Lincoln could ever have imagined. The question foremost on the minds of his supporters should be, when is he going to start using them?

Everyone knows the ending to the first Indiana Jones movie, Raiders of the Lost Ark. After finding the Ark of the Covenant, Indy hands his prize over to the US government who then proceeds to catalog the Ark, crate it up after stamping a rather large number on it, with the very last scene showing the crate being moved by a dolly in a gigantic government warehouse to be placed with thousands of other crates that look exactly like the one that contains the Ark. The clear implication left with the viewer is that somewhere, in some forgotten government warehouse, the United States is storing a find of immense historical importance.

Could something similar be the case regarding proof that Iraq WMD’s were moved to other countries prior to the US liberation in 2003?

The rapid victory of American forces over Saddam’s military took most of the world by surprise. In fact, it caught Saddam’s bureaucrats unawares as well, evidenced by the fact that literally millions of pages of incriminating documents were not destroyed prior to the fall of Hussein’s government. And as Stephen Hayes points out in this Weekly Standard article, the treasure trove of knowledge contained in those papers - most of them unclassified - could hold the key to unraveling the mystery of Iraq’s missing WMD’s as well as further illuminate evidence of Iraqi Intelligence Service (IIS) ties to al Qaeda and other terrorist groups:

For two years, I have been working to obtain copies of unclassified documents discovered in postwar Iraq. My reasoning is simple: If we understand what the Iraqi regime was doing in the months and years before the war, we will be better able to assess the nature of the threat posed by Saddam Hussein and, perhaps, to better understand the insurgency. It’s not a light subject, to be sure.

But the quest for the documents, while frustrating, has also been highly amusing. It is a story of bureaucratic incompetence and strategic incoherence. It is also a story–this one not funny at all–about the failure to explain the Iraq war. Two years after I started my pursuit, I’m not much closer to my goal.

Why? I have been told countless times by officials of the executive branch that there is no need to reargue the case for war, that what matters now is winning on the ground, that our intelligence professionals don’t have time to review history, so occupied are they with current intelligence about current threats. I’m sympathetic to at least part of that thinking; it’s hard to insist in the face of new and evolving threats that intelligence analysts should spend their precious time evaluating the past.

Apparently, despite these documents political importance to the Administration’s efforts to justify the Iraqi liberation in the eyes of the world and American citizens, a pitifully small number of analysts have been assigned to wade through this mish mash of documentation in order to obtain whatever nuggets of useful information that can be gleaned from their contents.

What’s even worse is that the intelligence agencies in charge of this effort have a vested interest in seeing that no information comes to light that contradicts their conclusion that Iraq destroyed its WMD program following the first Gulf War. John Tierney’s interview in Frontpage Magazine has some interesting thoughts along those lines:

On the post-war weapons hunt, the arrogance and hubris of the intelligence community is such that they can’t entertain the possibility that they just failed to find the weapons because the Iraqis did a good job cleaning up prior to their arrival. This reminds me of the police chief who announced on television plans to raid a secret drug factor on the outskirts of town. At the time appointed, the police, all twelve of them, lined up behind each other at the front door, knocked and waiting for the druggies to answer, as protocol required. After ten minute of toilet flushing and back-door slamming, somebody came to the front door in a bathrobe and explained he had been in the shower. The police took his story at face value, even though his was dry as a bone, then police proceeded to inspect the premises ensuring that the legal, moral , ethnic, human, and animal rights, and also the national dignity, of the druggies was preserved. After a search, the police chief announced THERE WERE NO STOCKPILES of drugs at the inspected site. Anyone care to move to this city?

The search for documentary evidence of Iraqi WMD’s must also be placed in the context of the war being waged by many in the intelligence community against the Administration. While it is highly unlikely that any “smoking gun” evidence of WMD is being deliberately withheld, one can speculate on the reason why people like Stephen Hayes are having such a hard time getting access to unclassified documents. Could it be that there is some fear that Hayes and others would find something exculpatory of the Administration? This points up the real damage done by the opposition of the CIA, DIA and other intelligence agencies to the Administration’s policies; we simply can’t trust them to be honest and forthright when it comes to any work they do on Iraq’s WMD’s.

This brings us to the continuing, almost comical efforts by Hayes to get straight answers to simple questions regarding the documentation:

Because I’d been told that these documents are all unclassified, I requested copies from the Pentagon press office. For reasons I still do not entirely understand, the Pentagon would not provide them. Captain Roxie Merritt, the director of Pentagon press operations, suggested I file a Freedom of Information Act request. I did so on June 19, 2005. Two weeks later I received a letter from the Pentagon’s Office of Freedom of Information and Security Review.

The information you requested is under the cognizance of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA). We have referred your request to them at the address provided below requesting they respond directly to you.

Mr. Hayes then gets a bureaucratic runaround reminiscent of a Keystone Cops routine in a Buster Keaton silent movie. As the spooks play hide and seek with Mr. Hayes, directing him to inquire at other agencies for permission to view the documents, one is left with the distinct impression that the bureaucrats would just as soon have Mr. Hayes run along and mind his own business. But Hayes makes a good point; if they don’t want to take the time and trouble to examine the documents, why not let others have a crack at them?

One of the documents, “Iraqi Efforts to Cooperate with Saudi Opposition Groups and Individuals,” had been provided to the New York Times last summer. Thom Shanker, one of the Times’s best reporters, wrote a story based on the document, which was an internal Iraqi Intelligence memo. The Iraqi document revealed that a Sudanese government official met with Uday Hussein and the director of the Iraqi Intelligence Service in 1994 and reported that bin Laden was willing to meet in Sudan. Bin Laden, according to the Iraqi document, was then “approached by our side” after “presidential approval” for the liaison was given. The former head of Iraqi Intelligence Directorate 4 met with bin Laden on February 19, 1995. The document further states that bin Laden “had some reservations about being labeled an Iraqi operative”–a comment that suggests the possibility had been discussed. (According to another Iraqi Intelligence document, authenticated by the DIA and first reported on 60 Minutes, the regime considered bin Laden an “Iraqi Intelligence asset” as early as 1992, though it’s unclear that bin Laden shared this view.)

According to a report in the Times, bin Laden requested that Iraq’s state-run television network broadcast anti-Saudi propaganda; the document indicates that the Iraqis agreed to do this. The al Qaeda leader also proposed “joint operations against foreign forces” in Saudi Arabia. There is no Iraqi response provided in the documents. When bin Laden left Sudan for Afghanistan in May 1996, the Iraqis sought “other channels through which to handle the relationship, in light of his current location.” The IIS memo directs that “cooperation between the two organizations should be allowed to develop freely through discussion and agreement.”

What kind of cooperation resulted from this discussion and agreement?

You’d think the U.S. government, journalists, and policy types–not to mention attentive citizens–would want to know more. You’d think they’d be eager.

Meanwhile, John Tierney in the aforementioned interview by Frontpage Magazine dropped a few bombshells of his own, not the least of which is his crystallizing much of information about the real possibility that Saddam may have moved his stockpiles of WMD to Syria prior to the war.

FP: Let’s talk a little bit more about how the WMDs disappeared.

Tierney: In Iraq’s case, the lakes and rivers were the toilet, and Syria was the back door. Even though there was imagery showing an inordinate amount of traffic into Syria prior to the inspections, and there were other indicators of government control of commercial trucking that could be used to ship the weapons to Syria, from the ICs point of view, if there is no positive evidence that the movement occurred, it never happened. This conclusion is the consequence of confusing litigation with intelligence. Litigation depends on evidence, intelligence depends on indicators. Picture yourself as a German intelligence officer in Northern France in April 1944. When asked where will the Allies land, you reply “I would be happy to tell you when I have solid, legal proof, sir. We will have to wait until they actually land.” You won’t last very long. That officer would have to take in all the indicators, factor in deception, and make an assessment (this is a fancy intelligence word for an educated guess).

In fact, in a little noticed story back in April, the CIA admitted there was “sufficiently credible evidence” that Iraq WMD had been moved to Syria:

But on the question of Syria, Mr. Duelfer did not close the books. “ISG [Iraq Survey Group] was unable to complete its investigation and is unable to rule out the possibility that WMD was evacuated to Syria before the war,” Mr. Duelfer said in a report posted on the CIA’s Web site Monday night.

He cited some evidence of a transfer. “Whether Syria received military items from Iraq for safekeeping or other reasons has yet to be determined,” he said. “There was evidence of a discussion of possible WMD collaboration initiated by a Syrian security officer, and ISG received information about movement of material out of Iraq, including the possibility that WMD was involved. In the judgment of the working group, these reports were sufficiently credible to merit further investigation.”

Given all the uncertainty surrounding the question of what happened to cause every major intelligence service in the world to be fooled into believing that Saddam did in fact have WMD’s, might it be a case where, given ample time in the lead up to America’s invasion of his country, Saddam, with the help of Russia was able to both destroy and spirit out of the country his stockpiles of WMD?

The answer may be contained in those documents that Mr. Hayes and others want to get a look at. At the very least, those documents should be examined and publicized for what they can tell us about the brutal regime of Saddam Hussein.

The precedent for this was the remarkable example found at the end of World War II. The rapid collapse of the Nazi regime meant for the first time in history, huge caches of documents, diaries, and other historical artifacts fell into the hands of a conquering army. What we found in those documents was absolutely chilling; plans for the systematic murder of millions of innocents. The “Final Solution to the Jewish Question” was a plan to make Europe “Jew free” by shipping the continent’s Jewish inhabitants to death camps were they were to be exterminated by the millions. We know this to be true because of the meticulous records kept by both German government and businesses whose plans and calculations for cold blooded murder would be unbelievable if they weren’t put down on paper for all to see.

My guess would be that contained in those millions of Iraqi documents is similar evidence of planned, systematic atrocities against the Shias and the Kurds. For this reason alone, those documents should be examined by dozens of teams of experts from around the world in order to wring whatever information contained therein which would bring the perpetrators of Saddam’s horrors to justice. History demands it. And there will be no justice in Iraq until the full story of Saddam’s tyranny is brought into the light of day where history’s judgment can be meted out to Saddam and his cutthroat band of murderous gangsters.

American forces have raided a prison run by the Ministry of Interior in central Baghdad that would seem to be operating independently of oversight from the Iraqi government:

U.S. and Iraqi forces raided a secret Iraqi detention bunker run by the Ministry of Interior in central Baghdad and freed 173 Sunni prisoners who had been tortured with electric shocks and drills, Iraqi and U.S. officials said yesterday.

The Ministry of Interior in the Shi’ite-led government has been repeatedly accused of allowing extrajudicial detentions and abuses, including operation of anti-Sunni hit squads.

A Baghdad police official said officers from the Shi’ite-led Badr Brigade, which answers to the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) political party, were manning the bunker when the U.S. and Iraqi forces arrived.

“The army searched the bunker and found many prisoners there,” said the police official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. “They found prisoners who had been treated inhumanely, tortured with warm water, electricity and drills in their bodies.”

Herein lies the seeds of destruction for the new Iraqi state. Because of the nature of the insurgency and the inability of both American and Iraqi forces to protect the population, dozens of Shia militias have sprung up over the last few years. Some are small adjuncts of tribal and village councils and operate sometimes as death squads, targeting Sunni inhabitants who may or may not support the insurgency. Others like Muqtada al Sadr’s Mahdi Army engaged in operations against Americans until soundly defeated last year in Najaf and Sadr City. Al-Sadr has since laid down his arms and several of his followers have joined the new government.

But by far the largest and most problematic militia has been the Badr Brigade (renamed the Badr Organization of Reconstruction and Development ) which controls large areas in southern Iraq and is closely associated with the largest political party, the Supreme Council of Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI). The militia dominates police and government offices in several southern provinces where they have attempted with varying degrees of success to establish a strict Islamic code of law.

There are several worrying aspects to the Badr Organization not the least of which is their close ties to the Revolutionary Guards organization in Iran who have armed them and funded their activities. It was an offshoot of the Badr organization with close ties to the Interior Ministry known as the Wolf Brigade that may be responsible for running this extra-legal prison:

What is the Wolf Brigade?

The most feared and effective commando unit in Iraq, experts say. Formed last October by a former three-star Shiite general and SCIRI member who goes by the nom de guerre Abu Walid, the Wolf Brigade is composed of roughly 2,000 fighters, mostly young, poor Shiites from Sadr City. Members of the group reportedly earn as much as 700,000 Iraqi dinars, or $400, per month, a large sum in Iraqi terms. They dress in garb–olive uniform and red beret–redolent of Saddam Hussein’s elite guard; their logo is a menacing-looking wolf.

How did the Wolf Brigade earn its reputation?

Last December, the Wolf Brigade–backed up by the Iraqi army and U.S. military–achieved notoriety after launching a series of counterinsurgency operations in Mosul, a Sunni stronghold northwest of Baghdad. Their popularity was further buoyed by the success of Terrorism in the Grip of Justice, a primetime show on U.S.-funded Al Iraqiya television that features live interrogations of Iraqi insurgents by commandos. In one recent show, Abu Walid questioned around 30 shabbily dressed suspects, some clutching photos of their victims, waiting to confess their crimes.

American forces have actually used the Wolf Brigade and commando units from other militias in counter-insurgency operations with much success. These are highly motivated, well trained and well led units who have proven themselves in fighting in Mosul and other rebel strongholds.

The problem is who controls them? The Minister of the Interior is one Bayan Jabr, a former Badr Militia commander who fled to Iran when Saddam cracked down on Shi’ite political groups and ended up in Syria running the SCIRI office prior to Hussein’s overthrow. If Jabr controls the Wolf Brigade (that has been accused by Amnesty International of murder and torture) to what degree is the Interior Minister trying to carve out a separate sphere of influence for the Iranian-influenced Badr Organization? And how much control does Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari have over one of the most important ministries in his government?

In the elections next month, it’s clear that the SCIRI will once again dominate. Will the leaders of the party who say they speak for Iraq - especially the Grand Ayatollah Sistani - try to rein in and control the elements of the party apparatus that are currently operating outside of the control of the Prime Minister?

The new government of Iraq is moving toward the most dangerous period so far in its existence. And we Americans can do little except sit on the sidelines and hope for the best.

Senate Republicans appear to be about ready to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory in Iraq. Just as the nascent Iraqi government starts to get up a head of steam in anticipation of next month’s elections, some “nervous Nellies” who worry about what the New York Times says about them appear to be willing to play the surrender card:

In a sign of increasing unease among Congressional Republicans over the war in Iraq, the Senate is to consider on Tuesday a Republican proposal that calls for Iraqi forces to take the lead next year in securing the nation and for the Bush administration to lay out its strategy for ending the war.

The proposal on the Iraq war, from Senator Bill Frist, the majority leader, and Senator John W. Warner, Republican of Virginia, chairman of the Armed Services Committee, would require the administration to provide extensive new quarterly reports to Congress on subjects like progress in bringing in other countries to help stabilize Iraq. The other appeals related to Iraq are nonbinding and express the position of the Senate.

It isn’t just that this is the absolute worst time for Senate Republicans to turn into jellyfish on the war. It is their pathetic belief that this will somehow shield them from criticism or lessen their association with the War in Iraq in any way. Surely they don’t believe it will have any affect on the White House. In which case, they are directing their concerns toward the Iraqi people and government. In fact, this is the primary reason they are giving for this surrender:

Mr. Warner said the underlying message was, “we really mean business, Iraqis, get on with it.” The senator, an influential party voice on military issues, said he did not interpret the wording of his plan as critical of the administration, describing it as a “forward-looking” approach.

“It is not a question of satisfaction or dissatisfaction,” he said. “This reflects what has to be done.”

Democrats said the plan represented a shift in Republican sentiment on Iraq and was an acknowledgment of growing public unrest with the course of the war and the administration’s frequent call for patience. “I think it signals the fact that the American people are demanding change, and the Republicans see that that’s something that they have to follow,” said Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the Democratic leader.

Well, Frist and Co. walked into that one, didn’t they? When Harry Reid says your on the side of the angels and that “the American people are demanding change” it begs the question: why not just throw in the towel now instead of waiting until next November?

By realizing Democratic talking points on the war, the Republican majority may just have taken an irrevocable step toward becoming the Republican minority.

As for the Iraqi government, here’s my friend AJ at Strata-Sphere:

A democratic and free Iraq does not take orders from doddling old fools in the US Senate. Who is being imperialistic now? And how about playing the Vietnam card.

Only a nitwit believes that the Iraqi government isn’t desperate to get rid of US troops and have their own army take control in fighting the insurgency. I daresay that any Iraqi politician coming out and saying that he likes anything about American troops patrolling his country - not to mention having those troops under American command and living in places where there is no Iraqi sovereignty - will not receive many votes at the polls. The fact is that Iraqi politicians are smarter than most Senators. At least in Iraq, the politicians are bright enough not to hand their opponents an election winning issue. The major political parties are all in support of getting Americans out as fast as possible. Why the “doddering old fools” in the Senate believe otherwise is a mystery.

The Administration will shrug off this nonsense as well it should. But the damage done to Republican Senators will evidence itself next November as I suspect several of their number will not be joining them when the next Congress convenes in January, 2007.

UPDATE

Hugh Hewitt has a similar take:

The proposed Senate resolution is an unmistakable vot-of-no-confidence in the Adminsitration, and the best gift the United States Senate could give Zarqawi and his terrorist ranks. It is almost incomprehensible that Senate Republicans could see this in any other fashion.