What happens to the Democrats if they bet on the wrong horse?

Posted By Blackfive

Last night, I was working on a Corporate Finance final exam and watched the Democrat YouTube debate on CNN.  I wondered why the question, "What if we have progress in Iraq, would you still advocate a withdrawal?" was never asked.

To be fair, all of them advocate the withdrawal idea;  HOWEVER, only Hilary Clinton was a realist about how long it would take to do so safely and orderly.  She mentioned that there wasn't a plan for withdrawal.  BS.  I'll bet there's about ten different plans for withdrawal sitting on the shelves of the Pentagon right now.  There is no plan in effect for withdrawal because, well, right now we are not withdrawing.  Actually, Senator, we are surging which, may I point out, is quite the opposite of withdrawing.

Anyway, most of the videos about the war were "model citizens" asking about when would you withdraw from Iraq.  Pretty lame.  There were some awful attempts at humor too (the Tennessee guys were terrible).

I guess the Democrats cannot or will not even try to devise their own plan to succeed...which means that they think that we cannot succeed.

If I could talk to them, I'd look them in the eye and ask them what they would do if we were actually succeeding when they took office.  I believe that some would do the right thing (Richardson, Clinton), and some would do the politically expedient thing (Biden).  The others owe too much (financially) to the whack jobs trying to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.  Some interesting questions would be:

What will happen to the Democrat candidates if success continues?

And what will Harry Reid and other Democrat leaders do to mitigate that success in order to win the Presidential election?

Personally, I think Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi would throw the Iraqis and our soldiers under the bus for a Presidential victory.

Will they even attend the September assessment presented by General David H. Petreaus and Ambassador Crocker?

The New York Times today has this piece from two men who were for the invasion of Iraq, then against the continuation of our presence in Iraq, and now...:

A War We Just Might Win
By MICHAEL E. O’HANLON and KENNETH M. POLLACK

The New York Times

VIEWED from Iraq, where we just spent eight days meeting with American and Iraqi military and civilian personnel, the political debate in Washington is surreal. The Bush administration has over four years lost essentially all credibility. Yet now the administration’s critics, in part as a result, seem unaware of the significant changes taking place.

Here is the most important thing Americans need to understand: We are finally getting somewhere in Iraq, at least in military terms. As two analysts who have harshly criticized the Bush administration’s miserable handling of Iraq, we were surprised by the gains we saw and the potential to produce not necessarily “victory” but a sustainable stability that both we and the Iraqis could live with.

After the furnace-like heat, the first thing you notice when you land in Baghdad is the morale of our troops. In previous trips to Iraq we often found American troops angry and frustrated — many sensed they had the wrong strategy, were using the wrong tactics and were risking their lives in pursuit of an approach that could not work...

For more, including the soccer victory of Iraq over Saudi Arabia, see Jimbo's post below.

And I'll put the recent Congressional testimony of former Assistant Secretary of Defense (and Marine and Vietnam Vet) Bing West after the Jump. His last four points should be posted across the blogosphere and you would do well to read them:

Statement of the Honorable Francis J. West, former Assistant Secretary of Defense, before the Committee on Armed Services, U.S. House of Representatives

Subject: Withdrawal from Iraq

July 25, 2007

Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member and Members:

It is an honor to appear before this subcommittee. The subject today is "Alternatives for Iraq". The President and the Congress agree about the desirability of a withdrawal of US forces; the issue is under what conditions. It makes a vast difference to our self-esteem as a nation, to our reputation around the world and to the morale of our enemies whether we say we are withdrawing because the Iraqi forces have improved or because we have given up.

That issue towers above any discussion of tactics, logistics diplomacy or even timing. The Iraqi Study Group and former Secretary of State Kissinger have suggested that negotiations might yield an honorable withdrawal - some sort of compromise that extracts American soldiers while not precipitating a collapse inside Iraq. But it's not clear what convergence of interests with Iran or Syria would persuade them to cease supporting insurgents. And inside Iraq, the Jesh al Mahdi extremists and al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) must be destroyed, not placated.

Separate from AQI, though, there are a dozen other Iraqi insurgent groups. At the local level, there have been productive negotiations with the tribes, undoubtedly including some of these insurgents. These bottom-up understandings, focused against AQI, occurred because military action changed the calculus of the tribes about who was going to win. Successful negotiations flowed from battlefield success, not the other way around.

In Anbar, our commander, Major General Walt Gaskin, believes we have turned the corner, with weekly incidents dropping from 428 in July of '06 to 98 in July of '07. In Baghdad and its outskirts, that's exactly what General Petraeus intends to do with his surge strategy - bring security to the local level and break the cycle of violence.

 

America is divided between two schools of thought about Iraq. The first school - let's call them the Anti-Terror Camp - identifies the jihadists as the main enemy. General Petraeus has said that "Iraq is the central front of al Qaeda's global campaign." AQI is "public enemy number one" because it slaughters thousands of innocent Shiites in order to provoke a civil war. CIA Director Gen. Michael Hayden believes that a US failure in Iraq will result "in a safe haven (for al Qaeda) from which then to plan and conduct attacks against the West".

Although AQI is a minority insurgent faction, it is unmatched in savagery. I watched Fallujah descend into hell when the Marines pulled back in May of 2004. Our troops called it the "M & I" campaign: Murder and Intimidation on an astonishing scale. In this war, the moral is to the physical as 20 to one. Most of the Iraqi forces and the tribes don't have yet the self-confidence and experience to stand alone against those killers.

Al Qaeda, however, is losing heavily in Anbar, is on the defense in Baghdad and is fleeing north toward Baqubah. The Anti-Terror Camp believes that fracturing AQI and the Jesh al Mahdi death squads will set the conditions that enable US withdrawal, leaving Iraqi forces to enforce reasonable stability, albeit with continued violence. Based on my observations in a half dozen Sunni cities and in Baghdad over the years, I subscribe to the Anti-Terror Camp.

The Sectarian Camp, on the other hand, believes Iraq is being torn apart by religion, not terrorism. Removing the terrorists will not remove the root cause of the violence. An intransigent hostility between the Shiites and Sunnis will lead inevitably to a full civil war and sweeping ethnic cleansings - regardless of the current surge. So we should get out, because the situation is hopeless.

It is problematic whether the sectarian conflict has metastasized into the body polity, and the top levels of the Iraqi government have certainly performed poorly. But if we declare we're leaving on that account, chaos will ensue. When President Thieu in 1975 pulled back just one division, the whole country erupted in panic. If we pull out because we say the Iraqi government has failed, Prime Minister Maliki will pull back and retrench his forces. When he does, the potential for panic flashing across the country in a few days is real.

Iraq has a wide-open highway network that facilitates spontaneous mass movement. In April of 2004, I was with the task force of 200 armored vehicles that General Mattis sent 200 miles, from north of Ramadi all the way around Baghdad, in order to stop the pandemonium and armed bands spontaneously cascading down the highways. This will happen again if we leave before the Iraqi Army is ready to take over.

Conversely, if we believe the Iraqi forces are dominating the insurgents and can contain the centrifugal forces of the Shiite militias, then we'll withdraw combat units beginning in 2008 -- but leave a hefty presence behind. I am referring to advisers, logisticians and anti-terror combat units. We have 24,000 soldiers in Afghanistan; we would need many more than that in Iraq for years to come. Personally, I'd like to see us say we plan on having American troops in Iraq indefinitely - and repeat that every time we withdrew some of our troops. I'd like to undercut AQI's morale by saying, we're going to continue killing and imprisoning you until there are none of you left.

In summary, I would make four points.

First, General Petraeus is our wartime leader. He has a smart, experienced staff. He will provide to you a fulsome, balanced assessment in September - far superior to anything you will hear in the interim.

Second, how you, our elected leaders, depict our withdrawal will have profound consequences. To a very large extent, you will shape the narrative, determining how our great nation is perceived and how friends and enemies respond to us.

Third, if the rationale for withdrawal is because Iraq seems hopeless, then leaving behind a residual force is fraught with peril. You cannot quit, and expect to manage what happens after you quit. Iraq, if it perceives it is being abandoned, could fly apart quickly.

Fourth, the rationale for withdrawal drives everything that comes thereafter. Why are we withdrawing? Is it because we as a nation have given up, concluding that full-scale civil war is inevitable; or has our military succeeded, allowing Iraqi forces to maintain stability?

I do not see a compromise "middle ground" between those two rationales.

Thank you.

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Comments

[Allan]

I guess the Democrats might throw the soldiers under the bus. Quite some abuse the soldiers take, being thrown under a bus after having been given orders to stand on the tracks and stop a freight train.

I do agree that we will need to leave a substantial number of troops in Iraq. . . it is just reality.

[dellbabe68]

I almost couldn't believe the NYT article. Must've killed the editors!

[Bill Smith]

Wonderful news. Those of us who read this blog, Yon, Roggio, et al have seen the turn around for some time. My cynical side thinks that the NYT needs to get aboard the victory train. I'm just glad they see it, too.

[Synova]

The Tennessee guys were hysterical. What they weren't was serious. I went through and watched a couple hours of their stuff on You Tube and I think I broke my face from laughing.

They have a good response to Reid, too.

[Marzouq]

Ahanda Allah! Victory is at hand. A good sign was the soccer victory that Iraq won over three time champion Saudi Arabia. Allah was with Iraq over the Wahabbi pukes!

Allah is with the Coalition Muhajideen, the Iraqi Army and Iraqi Police. The sheikhs have seen the light after they had seen the darkness of the servants of Satan, al Queda and the Baath (Sadaam's and Syria's NAZI Party).

4GW has defeated the appeasing Democrats and their propaganda organ the "Mainstream Media"!

This 21st Century Asymetric War is transforming into a 21st Century Renaissance and the War Within Islam shall be won by the Good/Democratic over the Bad/Theocratic/Autocratic/Despotic, insha Allah (God willing).

Salaaaaaam freekin eleikum, Y'all!

[liyak]

Waste!Exists,only because we fight realistically and Iraq by itself will not
be able to uphold it!It's not our problem,
but an ancient tribal,one!Muslims need to
quit,fightining themselves.

[MICHAEL in MI]

Excellent post and commentary, Matt. This is great news and I definitely agree with you on the last 4 points of Bing West. They need to be spread not just around the blogs, but around the MSM, the halls of Congress and the White House as well.

[dslrogers]

Finally, it seems we are turning a corner in Iraq and at home.

[Ymarsakar]

What happens to the Democrats if they bet on the wrong horse?

When it is time to pay, they'll probably pull out a weapon and accuse us of cheating. Which perhaps necessitates that we shoot them first.

[john Ryan]

Democrats make up only 1/3 of the population Republicans are about 1/3 and Independents are about 1/3.
So far it seems that all of the Independents have moved over to the Democrats side.
Demonization and hate for fellow citizens and their political views occurs on both sides of the political spectrum.
Does anyone really believe that the Shia are ever going to give the Sunnis any real power or share the oil with them ? It certainly hasn't happened yet. And now that summer vacation has begun for the Iraqi parliment it will not be happening before September. If Americans do not see positive political movement by the Iraqis then they will end the military support for the Iraqi government.
As fo al Qaeda their numbers have remained about the same about 1500 and they are not the ones killing Americans those are the Sunnis and the Shia militias.

[Rickbert]

What happens? All the dems that were for deposing Saddam before they were against it will praise themselves for supporting the troops the whole time. And then they will praise the troops for succeeding despite being led by a chimpanzee (or whatever they're calling him these days) like Bush. And whichever of them gets the nomination just won't bring the subject up when they name one of the ones that was always against the war as their VP candidate, to reassure their base they really were against the war all along?

Just a wild guess.

[Rich Casebolt]

I guess the Democrats might throw the soldiers under the bus. Quite some abuse the soldiers take, being thrown under a bus after having been given orders to stand on the tracks and stop a freight train.

It's kind of hard for our warfighters to de-rail even the mere handcars that is the best the enemy can put on the tracks in Iraq ... mere handcars in comparison to the "freight trains" of say, Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan, and Communist Russia ... when the signal bells are consistently being drowned out by cries of "we've already lost" ... "fire Rumsfeld" ... "impeach Bush!".

Maybe we would have listened more, Allan, if you and your fellow-travelers had shown you were more focused on protecting our civilization, than you were in defeating our current leadership and replacing them with ... what?

****************************

Democrats make up only 1/3 of the population Republicans are about 1/3 and Independents are about 1/3.
So far it seems that all of the Independents have moved over to the Democrats side..

Based on recent poll results, they may be moving away from there ... since we now have New Media intel like Michael Yon, Bill Roggio and other wise denizens of the blogosphere, to counter the faulty intel of the lame-stream media.

Demonization and hate for fellow citizens and their political views occurs on both sides of the political spectrum.

But I thought those of you on the Left are better than us "mean-spirited" neocons!

Actually, John, my discussions with INTELLIGENT, REASONED critics take a slightly different -- and more congenial tone -- than they do with those who strain at gnats, then fling the strainings like so much monkey-poo at our leaders ... the typical MO of the Leftist critics of today.

That is why you and I keep meeting like this, my gnat-straining friend.

Does anyone really believe that the Shia are ever going to give the Sunnis any real power or share the oil with them ? It certainly hasn't happened yet.

Go read Michael Yon's "7 Rules: 1 Oath" ... an account of how former insurgent leaders are now working with us for peace:

2) Accept both peaceful Sunni, Shia and others.

After some intelligent discussion, the Iraqis wanted this changed to “Accept all peaceful Iraqi citizens without discrimination.”

...

Seeing “God is Great” written on the Iraqi flag might provoke some to protest “Why did we come here just to stand up a country who would write such things on their flag?” But I sat there in that meeting, which was completely civil and professional, and I thought about another flag, the one flying over South Carolina. Some people call that flag “heritage,” while others call it “hateful,” “painful” and “demeaning.” And today in that meeting, I thought about the descendants of slaves who are now top military commanders in the American Army, and in that moment I knew that Iraq could make it.

If we could overcome, so can the Iraqis ...

... as long as we stay around long enough to convince those diminishing few who want a return to the Bad Old Days there, that there are better ways to act ... be that cooperation with your neighbors, or meeting your 72 virgins/Virginians/goats at the hands of everyone else.

And now that summer vacation has begun for the Iraqi parliment it will not be happening before September.

Iraq has already met more of its benchmarks than our current Congressional leadership has met of theirs.

You mistake expeditiousness for effectiveness ... or in your eyes, is ANY agreement now better than waiting ... the negotiational approach that made so much of a sham of the arms-reduction efforts of my generation, until Reagan reversed that paragidm?

If Americans do not see positive political movement by the Iraqis then they will end the military support for the Iraqi government.

They already are ... as they are now (finally) finding and reading the positive reports like that above by Yon.

Just as in our nation, the political and other solutions do not start and end with the legislature ... and like I said, the legislature has made progress. (Of course, since you support Democrats who keep advocating the federal government as a one-stop shop for all problem-solving, I can understand your confusion on this matter.)

As fo al Qaeda their numbers have remained about the same about 1500 and they are not the ones killing Americans those are the Sunnis and the Shia militias.

You mean militia members like those described in Yon's article ... now in Diyalah, rising as the Salvation Council did in Anbar?

You mean like Mookie al Sadr, now BACK in Iran?

It is not as simplistic as you want us to believe, John ... but it is simple. AQI has been weighed and found wanting ... the Iraqis are getting a taste of rights-respecting governance ...

... and, as Yon has reported recently more and more Iraqis now view us, not as thieves trying to steal their oil ... not as occupiers of an empire ... but as the "al-ameriki" tribe, who are here for all the virtuous reasons our leaders have stated again and again ... a tribe who they know doesn't want to be there no longer than needed ... a tribe who many consider an honest broker in a sea of others they still distrust right now ... but will work with if we are involved.

Somebody else who sees things your way recently told us that we were only secondary targets of the Sunni and Shia, since they are in a "civil war".

Sounds like talking-points dissonance.

Methinks we are going to see more of it, as many try one last time to get revenge for November 2000 and/or Save the Legacy of Woodstock Nation.

But others are now "getting it", as many readers here have for years.

There is potential for unity, still ... in Iraq, and in America ... if we act with wisdom at this juncture, in both places.

[Arch]

The democrat's worst nightmare is a military success in Iraq on Bush's watch. After their "already lost" comments, their failure to cut off funding, their private diplomacy, their slow bleed strategy and the rush by their presidential candidates to stake out the most anti-war position, the democrats would look very foolish if we won the war.

The media see their star is setting. Newspaper & news magazine subscription and ad revenues are falling, being replaced by online resources. The MSM are being marginalized, their credibility questioned. The media also see the possibility of a secure, stable Iraq would leave their favored political party again the minority - no more Speaker Pelosi, no more Majority Leader Reid, and worst of all, no President Hillary Clinton. Obama and Edwards have zero chance if the public believe we can win the war.

It will be a classic Dick Morris/Bill Clinton political triangulation. Radicalize your opponents and drive to the center. Hillary will break hard right and reverse her position on the Iraq War. She will claim that her perception that the Iraq War was not winnable was premature. With Joe Leiberman smiling by her side, she will commend General Petraeus, praise the troops and denounce the anti-war movement saying, "Politics end at the waters' edge." She looks patriotic, strong, reasonable, bipartisan, presidential!

It will all, of course, be a lie.

[Ymarsakar]

So far it seems that all of the Independents have moved over to the Democrats side.

That would make them non-Independent, you know.

Demonization and hate for fellow citizens and their political views occurs on both sides of the political spectrum.

That's why we talk about the Left, since it includes both sides of the political spectrum.

[JE]

What happens to the Democrats if they bet on the wrong horse?

Anyone, regardless of party who predicts, bets on and/or hopes for the loss of the United States of America during wartime deserves to experience substantial losses at the polls in 15 months+.