Investor's Business Daily, July 9th, 2007
Politics: The GOP senators defecting on Iraq have been spending too much time listening to their own egos. History will not remember them as statesmen, but as craven political opportunists.
Who cares about the country losing a little old war when there are important things to think about -- like getting re-elected?
That appears to be the thinking behind the political retreat in recent days of some Senate Republicans up for re-election next year, like Pete Domenici of New Mexico, John Warner of Virginia and Lamar Alexander of Tennessee.
Alexander is calling for "a new strategy." Someone might want to ask him what he thinks the tens of thousands of new U.S. troops sent to Iraq this year under a new commander, Gen. David Petraeus, are implementing exactly? An old strategy?
The massive counterinsurgency initiative, Operation Phantom Thunder, began in earnest less than a month ago. But these spineless Republicans can't even wait until September, when Petraeus issues his official report, to give our soldiers a chance to win.
Nebraska's Chuck Hagel, also up for re-election, made this pronouncement Sunday on NBC's "Meet the Press": "If we do not see this administration take some initiative to make some changes, significant strategic policy changes over the next 90 days, then, of course, it will be forced on them."
When is the last time a U.S. senator issued an ultimatum to his own party's commander in chief during wartime?
Senatorial hubris has even enveloped the usually sensible Judd Gregg of New Hampshire. He says he wants "a clear blueprint" for withdrawal.
The Democrats' chief fundraiser in the Senate, Charles Schumer of New York, was exuberant about it all. "I think the dam is about to burst," he said of the GOP defections on CBS' "Face the Nation."
This whole sorry spectacle began with Indiana's Richard Lugar, who was praised by anti-war Democrats late last month when he took to the Senate floor and called for throwing in the towel on Iraq.
Instead of military force, we should fight our enemies with "a multi-faceted diplomatic offensive that pushes adversarial states and terrorist groups to adjust to us," Lugar said. That impending "multi-faceted diplomatic offensive" must have al-Qaida and the Mahdi Army quaking in their explosive suicide belts.
Iraq's foreign minister, Hoshyar Zebari, warned in the clearest of terms this week of the dangers of withdrawing U.S. forces before the job is done. They include "a civil war, dividing the country, regional wars and the collapse of the state," Zebari said.
"In our estimations, until Iraqi forces are ready, there is a responsibility on the United States to stand with (Iraq) as the (Iraqi security) forces are being built," he said.
President Bush has been equally clear about our responsibility, emphasizing in a speech to the West Virginia Air National Guard on July 4 that "withdrawing our troops prematurely, based on politics, not on the advice and recommendation of our military commanders, would not be in our national interest."
The president added that "it would hand the enemy a victory and put America's security at risk -- and that's something we're not going to do." The president's determination contradicts news reports that White House officials are mulling a gradual withdrawal.
On Election Night 2008, Domenici, Warner and the other Republican senators who put their political fortunes before America's interests may indeed find themselves sipping champagne.
But when the new Iraq is divided between al-Qaida and Iran as a consequence of their opportunism and becomes a base for exporting global terror, there will be little for their constituents -- the ultimate targets of that terror -- to celebrate.
