The 51-46 vote in the Senate was largely along party lines, and like House passage a day earlier it underscored that the war's congressional opponents are far short of the two-thirds majority needed to override a Bush veto.
Democrats marked Thursday's passage with a news conference during which they repeatedly urged Bush to reconsider his veto threat. "This bill for the first time gives the president of the United States an exit strategy" from Iraq, said Rep. David Obey of Wisconsin.
The legislation is "in keeping with what the American people want," added Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada.
The war is lost, they say. Who won they do not say. Tragically, all those stories about how Harry would resign his office if he could not fight in Iraq were not about Senator Reid. Our Harry wants out and to Hell with the consequences.
In 2002, a Democratic-controlled Senate and a Republican-controlled House declared war on Saddam's Iraq. The Democrats voted for the war despite constant complaints by the Left that we hadn't debated enough. Others complained that George Bush was engineering an easy war to ease his reelection campaign in two years. The public supported the war, however, so Democratic leaders did what the people wanted.
Then the Left quieted down for a bit due to the rapid defeat of Saddam's military and regime. Yet it wasn't long before the Left restarted the never-ending debate about whether to start the invasion.
And then it was plastic turkey after plastic turkey as the Left tried to paint the war as an incompetent endeavor. But they did not want to lose, they said. Oh no. It was the Pottery Barn Rule, they said. We broke Iraq so we bought it. While viciously and ignorantly complaining about a series of plastic turkey faux problems, the loyal opposition said they simply wanted to fight the war competently. I vehemently objected to the idea that liberating Iraq "broke" that country, but I comforted myself with the fact that they said they wanted to win in Iraq. I could endure some unfair criticisms if they'd try to win. One can accomplish much if you don't worry about who gets the credit.
Despite the difficulties evident by November 2004, and the unrelenting defeatism espoused by the Left, the voters wanted the president reelected to fight the war. That's what the voters wanted.
So as the 2006 elections rolled around and the Left was angry and eager to surrender. But the national Democratic Party was not so eager to run on that theme. They professed a desire to win. We need more troops. We need to pacify Baghdad. We need to get rid of Rumsfeld. So they ran conservative Democrats and won. That's what the people wanted.
Now the Left runs Congress. Having not run on ending the war, they now declare the voters sent them to Congress to retreat from a lost war. With their record, I'm not so sure they can be trusted to know what the voters want. I'm pretty sure that they are sadly wrong if they think our President, who has nobly fought this war despite relentless and iditioc criticism, wants an exit strategy from the likes of these defeatists. He just wants them to pay for the war they authorized so we can win the war they voted to start.
The members of Congress voting to skedaddle sure don't know that we are winning this war. Amir Taheri writes:
That Reid is desperately trying to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory isn't surprising. His party requires an American defeat in Iraq in order to win the congressional and presidential elections next year.
What is generically known as "the war" is, in fact, three wars.
The first war was about changing the status quo in Iraq. America won by destroying Saddam's regime, ending Baghdad's stand-off with the United Nations and establishing that Iraq was not pursuing weapons of mass destruction. Victory in that war was achieved in 2003 with the completion of the U.S.-led investigation into Iraq's alleged WMD programs.
The second war was triggered by forces that wanted to prevent America from creating a new status quo that favored its interests along with the interests of a majority of Iraqis. This second war also ended in victory for America and its allies with the holding of free elections and, eventually, the emergence of a democratic Iraqi government in 2006.
The third and current war started toward the end of last year when the disparate forces fighting against the democratic government found a new point of convergence in a quest for driving America out. The Bush administration understood this and responded with its "surge" policy by dispatching more troops to Baghdad.
Unlike the two previous wars in which anti-American forces pursued a variety of goals, their sole aim this time is to drive the Americans out. In that sense, al Qaeda and other Islamist agents in Iraq have forged an unofficial alliance with residual Saddamites, criminal gangs, pan-Shiite chauvinists and small groups of Iraqis who fight out of genuine nationalistic but misguided motives.
Despite continued violence, America and its Iraqi allies are winning this third war, too. Their enemies are like the man in a casino who wins a heap of tokens at the roulette table, but is told at the cashier that those cannot be exchanged for real money.
The terrorists, the insurgents, the criminal gangs and the chauvinists of all ilk are still killing many people. But they cannot translate those killings into political gains. Their constituencies are shrinking, and the pockets of territory where they hide are becoming increasingly exposed. They certainly cannot drive the Americans out. No power on earth can. Unless, of course, Harry Reid does it for them.
I too wrote of the stages of the war we've gone through thus far, taking down one main opponent after another. They still kill, but if we fight they cannot win.
Senator Lieberman sadly represents the last remnant of the Democratic wing of the national Democratic Party as craven defeatists who will only fight for power have taken over. He writes that retreating from Iraq will not solve anything and will make things far worse:
Unfortunately, because this slaughter took place in Baghdad, the carnage as seized upon as the latest talking point by advocates of withdrawal here in Washington. Rather than condemning the attacks and the terrorists who committed them, critics trumpeted them as proof that Gen. David Petraeus's security strategy has failed and that the war is "lost."
And today, perversely, the Senate is likely to vote on a binding timeline of withdrawal from Iraq.
This reaction is dangerously wrong. It reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of both the reality in Iraq and the nature of the enemy we are fighting there.
I've mentioned that we would surrender to those we are defeating. This description of one of our enemies should remind us that our enemies have problems that we just don't see:
His story, which he tells through a Kurdish translator I brought along, takes us inside the secret world of the Iraqi insurgency. It does not fit what we think we know about the enemy in Iraq. It is not a saga of religious zealotry.
Mustafa smirks when he tells me he is a “secularist” who does not pray and boasts about enjoying whiskey, drugs and prostitutes. He is a Sunni who does not mind working for Shia, provided the pay is good. And far from being a patriot, he betrayed his country to work for Iran. Finally, his story shows that the terrorists are not supermen who are able to walk like ghosts through layers of security. At the street-level they are petty criminals who can be caught. What makes Mustafa’s story important is that it reveals the human side of the insurgency. It’s a tale of dirty cops, rivalry, revenge, recruitment and control that climaxes in a fireball in Halabja, Iraq in June 2005.
So the Congress repeals the Pottery Barn Rule. We broke it, they still insist. But now the Congress says President Bush owns it--not all of us. And the broken shards that we've painstakingly put together so far to build a free and democratic Iraq that will be our full ally in the Long War will be dropped if Congress get its way. You tricked us into picking up that pottery! It's not my fault you dropped it! You can't make me pay for it! Oh, and here's some pork for my district that you can pay for.
Our enemies are hurting. We are winning. Allah knows how much the enemy hurts. Sadly, this Congress remains ignorant of this fact.
A little backbone, please. For a little while longer, at least. You defeatists pretended for a good four years that you really wanted America to win. Would it really be that tough to pretend a little longer?
UPDATE: Live by the sword, die by the sword. Or in this case, polls about fighting in Iraq. Like I wrote, I don't trust Senator Reid to know what the American people want. If Senator Reid and his allies want to run away in defeat, that is their right. But don't they dare hide behind the American people.
