Robert Kagan asks a question in today's Washington Post that really needs to be pondered – and expanded on a little as well.
A front-page story in The Post last week suggested that the Bush administration has no backup plan in case the surge in Iraq doesn't work. I wonder if The Post and other newspapers have a backup plan in case it does. (Emphasis added)
Leading journalists have been reporting for some time that the war was hopeless, a fiasco that could not be salvaged by more troops and a new counterinsurgency strategy. The conventional wisdom in December held that sending more troops was politically impossible after the antiwar tenor of the midterm elections. It was practically impossible because the extra troops didn't exist. Even if the troops did exist, they could not make a difference.
Four months later, the once insurmountable political opposition has been surmounted. The nonexistent troops are flowing into Iraq. And though it is still early and horrible acts of violence continue, there is substantial evidence that the new counterinsurgency strategy, backed by the infusion of new forces, is having a significant effect.
Some observers are reporting the shift. Iraqi bloggers Mohammed and Omar Fadhil, widely respected for their straight talk, say that "early signs are encouraging." The first impact of the "surge," they write, was psychological. Both friends and foes in Iraq had been convinced, in no small part by the American media, that the United States was preparing to pull out. When the opposite occurred, this alone shifted the dynamic.
Read it all, Kagan does a roundup of un- or under – reported news that indicates there are, indeed, positive signs. Recall, please that General Petraeus told the Senate that the mission he was asked to accomplish was possible. Here's the question that also needs to be considered along with Kagan's: Do the Democrats who are blindly charging to the left have a backup plan for if the "surge" actually does work out? Because it will be a cold, dark wasteland for them if they bet against America and lose. They are making a bad gamble here with their pandering, posturing and pork barrel attempts to buy votes.
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I suppose that what so infuriates me is that the Democrat party has painted itself into a corner and will have no choice but to overtly sabotage the mission should the tide turn and it look as if things might turn around. They have left themselves no option but defeat because they believe that defeat in Iraq is a political victory for them. Should operations in Iraq succeed the result with be catastrophic for the Democrats. So catastrophic, in fact, that they apparently see less political damage to their party by intentionally sabotaging the mission than in allowing it to succeed.
That is what happens when you sit in a room breathing your own exhaust for a few years.
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