Get Ready for Debate About Who Lost Iraq

[babylonsister]

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/04/05/317/

Get Ready for Debate About Who Lost Iraq
Bush Could Blame Democrats, but Americans See it as his War
by Edward Epstein

WASHINGTON — The highly partisan question “Who lost Iraq?” will be heard repeatedly in the coming months, historians and political scientists say, as President Bush and a Democratic Congress spar over ending an unpopular war now in its fifth year.Bush’s decision to launch military operations to oust Saddam Hussein in 2003 has made the protracted Iraq war the centerpiece of his presidency. Now Democrats who took control of Congress in November are trying to force an end to the war by setting deadlines for all troops to leave Iraq.

If the war ends poorly for U.S. interests and for Iraq, Republicans will have an opening to charge that “cut-and-run” Democrats, not Bush and their party, were responsible for the defeat. And if Bush’s strategy works, the GOP can say Democrats were too quick to call for a withdrawal, the analysts say.

In previous instances over the past six decades, Republicans have repeatedly charged Democrats with dangerous weakness in the face of overseas challenges, sometimes to great political effect, and it’s a charge experts expect to hear again, perhaps soon.

“It’s worked again and again, and it could again,” said Ron Peters, University of Oklahoma political scientist.

Assuming Bush’s insistence on keeping forces in Iraq means continued U.S. involvement until he leaves office in January 2009, historian Robert Dallek said Bush’s possible Democratic successor would be the one to bring home U.S. forces. If a Democrat wins the White House in 2008, “a Democratic president is the one pulling the plug on this, (and) the “D” (for defeat) will be on them.”

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[Ezlivin]

1. We may have "lost" Iraq, but they lost America

And that's much more important.

[C_U_L8R]

2. Whose stupid idea was it to begin with ???

well.

[pscot]

3. Seems like the republiCon playbook

is getting a mite stale. This has been one of their favorite memes since Yalta.

[Jack Rabbit]

4. We already know. I say remove him form office.

DOWN WITH KING GEORGE



Portrait of King George from VoltaireNet.org

[Joe Chi Minh]

5. It was never there to be won. That was their big mistake.