Washblog

But there is SO much in that word "neutralize". The Republicans are trying to rehabilitate themselves on every other issue including Iraq by, in a sense, injecting the advantage (as reflected in the polls) they enjoy on "anti-terrorism" into every other issue because they've failed at them all.

The Republicans are, in a very real sense, a political army that has (like our real army) lost on all the political battlefields and retreated into a secure citadel from which they reach out and bomb the crap out of the opposition occasionally. The Democratic Party strategy seems to be to make the Republican losses even worse on all the other battlefields, but leave the citadel alone. That works, up to a point. At that point, the destructive capability the Republicans can muster by calling people traitors and encouragers of "Al-Qaeda types" is seen as too powerful not to garner respect. The fact that the Republicans can make the Democrats run every time they pull out the terrorism issue means that the Democrats can always be made to appear weak. It's not that the Republicans win with this, but they can never be made to appear to lose if they can generate panic among the Dems at will.

There has been much talk about a Democratic "alternative" to Bush's strategy. That's just bullshit. The Democrats have been forced to vote on a war effort that has been, at every stage, misrepresented with outright lies and bungled with bad strategy. Democrats were right to call for more troops when we went in. Even if the anarchy in Baghdad was inevitable given the unexpected speed of the American advance, it would have been far smarter to be able to bring to bear a larger occupation force. Democrats were right to be mystified and confused that the Administration had no occupation strategy whatsoever. There was no way the Defense Department should have been making its war plan a matter for public debate. They had to be trusted. They couldn't be trusted. And now, because the Administration simple cannot be trusted, Dems are right to call for a withdrawal before the defeat gets even worse.

Phase after phase of the bungled occupation having passed, the only rationale the Administration itself even gives is that we are in Iraq to fight Al-Qaeda (and possibly the influence of Iran). Of course, Iraq was totally free from the influence of Al-Qaeda (and Iran) before we went in there. In fact, there was no "Al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia" before we created the fertile ground to produce it.

America is LOSING the war on terrorism and the Dems are allowing that to be great news for George Bush. In fact, it is the only thing that will save him. No rational person thinks George Bush can do anything but lower taxes on rich people and bomb Muslims in retaliation for terrorist strikes. The utter hypocrisy of the Republicans has even undercut their previous abilty for (false) moralizing. And now, even tax cuts for the rich even seem to be losing popularity. So this one ability - to bomb the crap out of Muslims and call anyone a traitor who doesn't support that bombing - is all the Republicans are running on.

This means the time to strike against the citadel is now. Because Democrats who say that all the bombing is making America unsafe are right. Democrats who say that we should simply stop making the situation worse are inarguably correct. The record is there. The bombing is a failure. The war is a disaster. The ONLY rational strategy - the prerequisite for ALL rational strategies - is to stop making the situation worse and worse.

All the Republicans can do is make people afraid and convince them that the greatest nation on Earth has been reduced to viciousness and vengeance - that we have nothing to offer the world but death and destruction.

If Democrats do not confront that argument, then the Republicans will snatch victory from the gaping mouths of their many defeats. And there are only two choices here: either America is hurting itself with all this pointless violence or America is helping itself. With their absolute failure, the Republicans have taken away the possibility of salvaging anything from the war unless we stop the destruction now. There is no "third way" on Iraq.

I ask Democrats who think there is some middle ground - some way of being supportive and non-controversial about Iraq - to tell us what set of events they think will help the cause of the Democratic party. What can happen in Iraq that will make their gentle and ultimately supportive "criticism" of the Bush Administration work for Dems politically?

Because as I see it, Democrats had better hit that metaphoric, political, Republican citadel now. If not, the terrorists will eventually hit one of our real, military citadels with another Beirut Bombing or Tet Offensive or, even worse, one of our cities with another Madrid, London, or Mumbai attack. And I predict that then, as now, such a defeat in the war against terrorism will then be made a victory for the Republicans here at home - unless the Democrats get out front and call a Republican failure a Republican failure.

America need not lose the struggle against terrorism, but the Republicans are determined to.