Democrats fight against success in Iraq

Daniel Henninger:

Carried aloft on the gassy fumes of politics, the congressional Democrats may be overshooting on Iraq. Six months from now, they may wish they had been more temperate. Helped finally by the right U.S. military strategy, the Iraq nightmare might be ebbing. Then what?

No such thought intrudes today on Democratic politics. Buoyed by President Bush's 30-something approval and with disaffection over the war at 60%, Senate Majority Leader Reid can promise to sign on to Russ Feingold's pull-the-plug bill; and House Speaker Pelosi, as if making foie gras, can cram an Iraq-withdrawal bill down the gullets of her chamber's membership. The polls are with Harry and Nancy. What can go wrong?

What could go wrong is that the U.S. military's "surge" could go right. The surge, led by Gen. David Petraeus and formally known as the Baghdad Security Plan, is a real strategy being executed by real people on the ground in Iraq. For the past several months, since President Bush announced the plan, the Democratic leadership has acted as if this effort were so irrelevant as to not exist. Why bother? The House leadership has its own "surge" up and running in Washington against the enemy in the White House.

The Democrats' D.C. surge began in February when Rep. John Murtha announced plans to shut off the war. What followed was a six-week push by the Pelosi team toward a March vote on a date-certain pullout. Across those weeks, this domestic offensive has been the big story in our politics. Add in as well the theater of operations opened by Democratic Lt. Gen. Chuck Schumer's siege of the Justice Department.

This is heady stuff, rolling a president off the field, so heady the Democrats may be allowing their compulsions to make them the one force thwarting a much longed-for military success in Iraq. This in turn could leave the Democratic Party on the wrong side of the most revered institution in American life--the U.S. military. That is, back where they were when Bill Clinton was president. The "we support the troops" mantra will ring hollow if the Democrats are pulling out Army and Marine personnel just as they're gaining on the killers of their comrades.

The timelines for the Iraq surge announced on Jan. 10 and the Democrats' surge to shut it down have run in tandem.

...

It's not quite three months since the surge began in Iraq, and some early assessments of the operation have emerged. They are positive. Keep in mind that this strategy emerged from military reassessment over the past year, led largely by Gen. Petraeus; this isn't a pick-up team.

...

If the Iraq surge is succeeding, the Democrats' surge should stand down. If a year from now the Petraeus plan is foundering, the Democrats will have plenty of time to hang it around the GOP's neck by demanding a legitimate withdrawal date--November 2008. But not now.

The fact is that the Democrats are too committed to defeat to let us win. If the surge in Iraq is successful that is a disaster for the Democrats. They are now desperate for defeat and their desperation grows as the chances for success increase. They have put themselves in the position where if we win they lose. Their base has also put them in the position where if they let the surge succeed they lose. That is just the sorry state of Democrat politics these days.