The Democrat hysteria over Iraq

Emmett Tyrrell:

It looks like a death wish to me. The Democrats' recent all-night debate to confect legislation for pulling our troops out of Iraq immediately if not sooner suggests they are, en masse, afflicted with a death wish — and if their retreat gets more of our troops killed while transforming Iraq into bloody anarchy, they do not seem to care. Hysteria has seized them.

Not long ago most of them were prepared to give Gen. David Petraeus' new strategy a chance. After all, the Senate returned him to Iraq by an 81-0 vote. Now the Democrats want the general to begin a retreat even before tendering his agreed upon September report — a death wish, I say.

The evidence is that the American people are watching this Congress and what they see they do not like. According to a recent Zogby poll, this Democratic-controlled Congress is now more unpopular than President Bush, who, incidentally, will not be seeking re-election.

Maybe many of these Democratic solons plan to retire too. According to the Zogby poll 83 percent of the American people say the Democratic Congress is doing only a fair to poor job. Just 66 percent hold such a sour view of the president. In fact, this Democrat-controlled Congress is even more unpopular than the Republican-controlled Congress it replaced. On its deathbed, the Republican-controlled Congress had but a 23 percent approval rating. Today's Democrats have a 14 percent approval rating. I say death wish.

What makes this all the more bizarre is that Gen. Petraeus's new strategy seems to be working. Anbar Province was until recently a lost cause. Al Qaeda was having its way with the place. But its way was repellently brutal to local Iraqis, who increasingly saw al Qaeda as even more alien than the Coalition troops. About a year ago local leaders in Anbar began siding with us. Now their fighters working with our soldiers and the Iraqi army have sent al Qaeda packing. Ramadi, once an al Qaeda model for Shariah, is one of Iraq's safest cities.

Part of the explanation is the savage brand of Shariah imposed by al Qaeda in Ramadi. It has also been imposed by al Qaeda in Diyala Province. There grisly torture chambers were discovered after our military liberated the province's major city, Baqubah. Local residents directed the Americans to a building where they found the instruments of torture. Nearby, corpses, many headless, were buried. Diyala, not surprisingly, is going the way of Anbar.

In recent weeks, our troops mounted a deadly operation against al Qaeda, killing hundreds and capturing more. As in Anbar, local sheiks have come to our side, recognizing we will leave their province a lot faster than victorious al Qaeda and we will leave their lands in relative freedom.

Once again a catalyst for the sheikhs' cooperation was al Qaeda's brand of Shariah. Al Qaeda had brought in foreign judges, called muftis. Their punishment of transgressions committed by local residents included murdering children, often with public beheadings.

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Democrat hysteria is preventing reason from slipping into the conversation about what our course should be in Iraq. Hysteria makes people thing a war is lost when the casualties have been historically small. Hysteria makes Democrats not listen when evidence is presented that we are winning. Hysteria of Democrats will get a lot of Americans killed in a needless retreat from sanity.