The Democrats self inflicted wound

Donald Lambro:

Democrats pushing for a quick pullout of U.S. troops from Iraq are making a major political and strategic mistake that would endanger America's national security, party strategists and military policy advisers said yesterday.
As anti-war Democrats stepped up their political offensive in Congress through a series of votes on amendments calling for a military withdrawal from Iraq, a counteroffensive appeared to be building among more hawkish party advisers who warned that a precipitous pullout now would send the wrong signal to Americans about the Democrats' commitment to the new Iraqi government and its fight against al Qaeda terrorists.
Most of the criticism was aimed at Democratic proposals pushed by Rep. John P. Murtha of Pennsylvania and Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts, who are calling for a withdrawal within one year -- beginning this year -- a move that some party advisers called a "mistake" and "extreme."
"To go as far as Kerry and Murtha is a mistake, unless you already think we've lost," said Michael O'Hanlon, a Brookings Institution military analyst who advises Democrats in Congress on national security issues. "If you think we can win, you need to maintain some level of a U.S. presence, probably for several years, because the threat of a civil war is too great."
"Although the center of gravity in the Democratic Party still refuses to embrace the Kerry-Murtha notion, it has to be said that it is moving in that direction. It's a minority view in the Democratic Party, but it is a growing view," Mr. O'Hanlon said.
What disturbs him most is the "growing number of Democrats who want to see a downward movement in our troop size in Iraq, almost irrespective of the strategy" to fight and win the war, he said.
A sharper broadside at anti-war Democrats was hurled by Third Way, a Democratic think tank that wants the party to embrace more centrist policies, including a tougher national security posture in the war against terrorism.
In a statement issued at the start of this week's Senate debate on Iraq, Third Way President Jonathan Cowan urged Democrats to reject "calls for an immediate exit or for arbitrary timelines that ignore the danger to American national security of a precipitous withdrawal of our forces."

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The fight among Democrats over what their party's policy should be on Iraq drew widespread criticism from political analysts this week. The "Democrats were busy being Democrats -- divided, defensive and confused about the war," wrote Time magazine's Joe Klein.

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"The problem with Iraq is not Bush, it is Saddam Hussein and his legacy," Mr. O'Hanlon said. "It would be better if the critics of the administration find a tone that conveys that."

O'Hanlon is correct. When you study what happened in Iraq you realize what a fragil facade Saddam constructed in Iraq that he maintained with foreign terrorist that he trained and paid to terroize his own people. Many of these foreign terrorist continued what they had been doing before the war, but now they do not have the state to back them up and they have to fear that justiced will be done.

Zarqawi was just one of many terorist that Saddam imported and supported. During the war they fought under one of his sons as the Fedayeen or in Zarqawis case operated under an al Qaeda affiliate. Many were killed on the way to Baghdad, but many were in Anbar province which was not on the invasion route and therefore they escaped the major combat operations phase of the war. They are losing this phase of the war.