What is driving Demcorats over the cliff in Iraq

Jeff Jacoby:

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Why is the Democratic Party so wedded to defeat in Iraq? What drives its determination to see this war end in American failure?

The most generous explanation is that Democrats genuinely believe that Iraq will be better off with the Americans gone -- that removing US troops will eliminate the catalyst of Al Qaeda 's butchery.

But as Connecticut's Joseph Lieberman pointed out on Thursday, this is sheer fantasy. US troops have retreated from Iraqi cities and regions a number of times, yet "in each of these places where US forces pulled back, Al Qaeda rushed in. Rather than becoming islands of peace, they became . . . islands of fear and violence."

Lieberman quoted the grim forecast of Sheik Abdul Sattar, a Sunni tribal leader in Anbar province: "If the American forces leave right now, there will be civil war and the area will fall into total chaos." The most recent National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq agrees. An American withdrawal in the near future "almost certainly would lead to a significant increase in the scale and scope of sectarian conflict in Iraq," it concludes. "Massive civilian casualties and forced population displacement would be probable."

Some Democrats are clearly motivated by ideological conviction. There may be some on the party's leftmost fringe who would welcome a US defeat on the grounds that the only good superpower is a humbled superpower. There are certainly Democrats in Congress, such as Ted Kennedy and Dennis Kucinich, who almost always oppose any use of military force on principle.

And then there are those who cannot bring themselves to acknowledge the magnitude of the stakes in Iraq or in the larger conflict against radical jihadism. The reality of this struggle -- that we are in an existential war with a totalitarian enemy that celebrates death and cannot be appeased -- is too bleak and hopeless. They would rather escape into an alternate reality, one in which Americans can choose to end the war by quitting the battlefield.

But in the end there is no escaping that for many Democrats, this is all about politics. Both President Bush and the war in Iraq are unpopular, and the Democratic leadership hopes to capitalize by opposing both of them.

"We are going to pick up Senate seats as a result of this war," Reid said candidly at an April 12 press conference. "Senator Schumer has shown me numbers that are compelling and astounding." To which Schumer, chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, added: "The war in Iraq is a lead weight attached to their ankle. . . . They are looking extinction in the eye." He spoke those words, Congressional Quarterly observed, "making no attempt to hide his glee."

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Senator John McCain, adamantly supporting the current "surge" in Iraq, says he would rather lose a presidential campaign than a war. Democrats, all smiles, prefer to lose the war and win the campaign. They're not alone. In Iraq, Al Qaeda is smiling, too.

Obama is losing the war against cynicism in his party. This cynical attempt to lose a war for political purposes may look like a short term winner to hacks like Shumer, but the consequences will result in things besides elections for Democrats. They will be faced with responsibility for aiding an enemy that wants to kill them too who will be in a stronger position with more resources and with a victory to boost its recruiting efforts against us. They should remember that retreating from Mogadishu did not reduce the al Qaeda threat. It emboldened bin Laden and his religious bigots to greater efforts resulting in 9-11. The Democrats are unwisely emboldening them again.