Republicans take a stand in House

Daniel Henniger:

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The most striking impression from the debate is the most obvious: The nation is polarized. Of what I saw, there was no common ground between the two parties, none. Mainly, it was Blue America (Massachusetts, New York, cities, blue California) versus Red America (Florida, Texas, suburbs, red California).

The conventional wisdom now is that the "independent" vote is ascendant. But if Iraq is hot next year, the presidential runners will have to turn the trick of surviving the cauldrons of their boiling blue and red primaries and then purporting in the general election that they've emerged from them a lovely, independent pink. On foreign policy, that won't be easy, especially for Hillary and Barack.

Both need to find a worldview somewhere, because their party doesn't have one that extends beyond the suburbs of Baghdad.

In the House debate, it was the calculation of Speaker Pelosi and her leadership to keep the focus on the poll-proven unpopularity of the Iraq war and the 21st century's most famous bogeyman, "George Bush." The GOP calculation was to move the debate off Iraq and onto the broader war on terror.

Politics aside, the result on public view was a Democratic side that looked small, mired in talk of American "failure," while a number of senior Republicans--John Boehner, Pete Hoekstra, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, even Peter King--produced almost stirring speeches on the substance and meaning of the global threat.

Pete Hoekstra, recently chairman of the intelligence committee, gave what must be the severest attack on radical Islam ever by a U.S. public figure. Forget Pope Benedict; there was nary a genuflection to Muslim sensibilities in Mr. Hoekstra's argument that the enemy is not some vague thing called terrorism: "We are not at war with a tactic. We are at war with a group of militant Islamists who hate us and who hate much of the rest of the world."

John Boehner reviewed each Islamic terrorist act directed at the U.S. dating to the Iran hostage-taking of 1979. "Too bad it took so long to open our eyes," he said, "but they are open now." Ileana Ros-Lehtinen quoted the famous blueprint of al Qaeda No. 2 Ayman al-Zawahiri: "The first stage: expel the Americans from Iraq." Rep. Charles Boustany said plausibly that other Arab nations could never help with a political settlement if the region is engulfed in violence after a U.S. exit.

So one may ask: Where were you guys when we needed you? Republicans lost the election because most of them foxholed the past two years when the going got tough. Instead of this Kissingerian geopolitical vision, they let one guy carry the burden (they would reply that the "one guy" never asked for their help).

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Republicans need to make it clear that the Democrats will not get a free ride on their drive for defeat in Iraq. The suggestion that the US military is being defeated in Iraq is ludicrous. Our tow biggest enemy's in Iraq are already in head long retreat at the announcement of the troop surge that the Democrats are opposing. If the Democrats are insistent on their desperation for defeat, they must be made to bear the consequences of that defeat. They will try to blame it on Bush, but if we lose now it will be because Democrats desired it.