Iraq dilemma stymies Democrats

WASHINGTON - At a meeting of the Democratic National Committee in Washington, party activists were hoping to hear one of their leaders denounce President Bush’s Iraq policy.

One rose to the occasion, electrifying the crowd by asking: “What I want to know is why in the world the Democratic Party leadership is supporting the president's unilateral attack on Iraq?”

That question, in February of 2003, helped make Howard Dean the frontrunner for his party’s presidential nomination.

The DNC executive committee met this past weekend, again in Washington, and again Iraq was on the minds of party activists.

At a time when opinion polls show increasing public uneasiness about President Bush’s Iraq policy, no Democratic leader — not even Dean himself — has unleashed the kind of rousing rhetoric Dean used two-and-a-half years ago.

A former Democrat, now a Republican, Rep. Walter Jones of North Carolina, called Sunday for a timetable for withdrawing Americans troops from Iraq. Jones's congressional district includes Camp Lejeune, a major Marine Corps base.

Also Sunday, a new Gallup poll found that 59 percent of those interviewed wanted a full or partial withdrawal of United States forces from Iraq. Gallup found that among self-identified Democrats, 72 percent said the United States should withdraw all or some of its troops.

Gallup's sample of 1,002 adults, aged 18 and older, was conducted from June 6 through June 8.

'Backed into a corner'
“I think Democrats have largely been backed into a corner on Iraq,” said Judith Hope, a DNC executive committee member from New York. “While most of us believe we should never have gone in there in the first place, many of us believe that now that we’re there, we have no choice but to finish the job. It would be both immoral and dangerous to bail out of that part of the world, given what we know today.”

She added that the day may come when “the political leadership of this country has to say, ‘Not only was it a mistake to go in there, it’s a failure, and we’ve got to get out,’ but I don’t think we’re there yet.”

Another DNC member, Karen Marchioro, the former co-chair of Dean’s campaign in Washington state, said, “Once we’ve gotten ourselves into a mess like this, I’m not sure what I think we should do — and I was opposed to this thing from the get-go. I don’t think it’s a fair question to ask of people who opposed this war to figure out how to get out of it.”

If a 2008 Democratic presidential contender proposes a plan to withdraw American forces by a specific date, “God knows we’ll be united behind such an idea. Whoever does it, is going to get a leg up” on clinching the party’s 2008 nomination, said Marchioro.

Dean, who is now the DNC chairman, didn’t speak about Iraq at this weekend’s meeting. He did say Democrats will appeal to voters as the party that will provide universal health insurance, build “national defense based on international cooperation,” and buttress parents’ moral authority.

“We’re going to make it easier for parents to teach their kids right from wrong,” Dean said.

Likewise, Hope suggested that the party must address voters’ anxiety about their children. “The wife is working, the husband is working, the junior high school kid is home at 3 o’clock and there is no one home to supervise that young person,” Hope said.

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