Reconsidering Iraq

Sowing doubt
On Iraq, attitudes here were changing even before the latest Washington Post poll, which, for the first time, showed that a majority of Americans (52 percent) don’t think the war in Iraq has “contributed to the long-term security of the United States.”

Sowing further doubt is the prime objective of the suicide bombers slipping into Iraq from around the Muslim world. Killing Americans by killing yourself is a fashionable fast route to heaven. How are we safer when that idea spreads to the youth of Syria, Iran and who knows where else?

So what do we do now?

There is a school of thought that the answer lies in more American boots on the ground. If we had only put in more at the beginning, or so the theory goes, things would have gone more smoothly.

Maybe we can correct that mistake now. Forget it. The idea won’t fly politically. Part of my job is to travel the country talking to voters, and I can tell you that there is very little support for that notion. The Pentagon has enough trouble right now recruiting young men and women to the Armed Services as it is. Announce a doubling of the commitment to Iraq? All hell breaks loose. And at some point even a compliant Republican Congress is going to balk at the financial cost. Iraq is on the way to becoming the most expensive war we have ever fought.

Just as the unveiling of Deep Throat brought forth echoes of the Vietnam Era, so does the bleak news about Iraq. The rhetorical parallels are becoming eerie, even suffocating. The White House issues upbeat assessments deemed absurd by critics; senators return from “fact-finding” tours full of glum and frightening tales. The president declares that we can’t “cut and run” – not so subtly implying that anyone who suggests withdrawal is a traitorous weakling.

And the Democrats, facing a Republican president they regard as “imperial” (the word they used for Richard Nixon) grow increasingly hysterical. Howard Dean is unbound and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton – who began her political career as a staffer on an impeachment committee in 1974 – claims that “there has never been an administration… more intent upon consolidation and abusing power to further its own agenda.” Al Franken, talk show host and likely Democratic Senate candidate, suggests that Bush should be impeached. Even Sen. John Kerry is said to be considering the possibility.

But Democrats shouldn’t gloat. Voters are far – very far – from being convinced that candidate Clinton & Company possess the answers, on Iraq or anything else. The same Washington Post poll that contained gloomy Iraq numbers for Bush also showed that the Democrats had fallen to their lowest public approval rating ever.

The officer who wrote me from Iraq doesn’t have much use for either party, in fact. He just wants to get the job done and come home.

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