The Implications Don’t Recede

Daniel Henninger takes a look at the two days of hearings just concluded on Capitol Hill where Congress heard from General David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker and notices that they fell flat. The expected fireworks didn't happen, the emotions were muted. The questioning Congressmen and Senators seemed disinterested. He points out the flat affect that Hillary Clinton used and wonders if the Iraq war is no longer the hot political issue:

Hillary Clinton, as the clock struggled toward the final hour of the Petraeus-Crocker hearings this week, reminded the two witnesses that it was September 11. "I started my morning today at Ground Zero," said the New York senator, not looking at the men but at the papers on the desk before her, "where once again the names of the nearly 3,000 victims of the attack on our country were read solemnly in the rain. We have seen Osama bin Laden reappear on our television sets, essentially taunting us. We have the most recent reports out of Germany of terrorists plotting against American assets, who have been trained in Pakistan."

These remarks were delivered without passion. It was expected that the Petraeus-Crocker hearings would be two days of high drama. They were not. Gen. Petraeus and U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker were questioned about Iraq by Democrats on three full committees, including five candidates for the presidency, and the hearings were flat. Could it be the air is going out of Iraq as a hot political issue?

Henninger makes the point that the smear attack by MoveOn.org may have stymied the Democrats and stolen most of their thunder. He points out that the Democrats have a real problem on their hands as a result:

The Democrats in Congress need to put some space between themselves and the Web-footed antiwar movement. MoveOn.org's "General Betray Us" ad in the New York Times made it difficult for any Democrat to breathe fire at Gen. Petraeus. MoveOn.org pre-used all that political capital. A malady endemic to the Web is that much of the Netroots is essentially narcissistic. That ad proved it's more about them than about elected Democrats. The politicians had better figure this out. A marriage of two narcissists often proves difficult.

As he puts it, it appears to be time for the Democrats to move on. The Iraq war is not the hot political issue for the American public. The expected "toxic political environment" that the Democrats and their proxies tried to foment over the August recess did not happen. Because there is some progress in Iraq. Enough that even long-time Democratic lawmakers who opposed the war have conceded that point. It is time to refocus.

As a political debate, the Iraq war has been drained. There's not much more to get out of it. The hearings proved that. The one fresh, forward-moving issue that emerged from the hearings, raised by Joe Lieberman, was whether we should crack back at Iran (or Syria), which is costing American lives in Iraq. But for Democrats, this subject is off the table. So what does that leave them for the next 14 months? Are they going to bet the ranch on Iraq being in flames next fall? Most likely, it won't be. If Iraq gradually improves, most Americans will be relieved or rejoice. If Net-rooted Democratic candidates can't bring themselves to do that, they need to change the subject.

I have tried, as have many others, to point out that a withdrawal from Iraq will lead to a bloodbath and a huge amount of damage to America's foreign relations. And those things would not hurt only one party but America as a whole. The entire nation would be damaged. Iraq would be devastated and the entire Middle East destabilized.