The Senator's retreat

Opinion Journal:

The last of the brigades President Bush ordered for his military surge in Iraq only arrived in the country last month, and they have been heavily engaged with al Qaeda in the Sunni triangle around Baghdad as part of the new military strategy. So it's especially distressing that Republican Senators should decide that this is the time to separate themselves from Mr. Bush on Iraq.

"I do not doubt the assessments of military commanders that there has been some progress in security," Richard Lugar, the ranking Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, declared on the Senate floor late last month. But that didn't stop Mr. Lugar from concluding that its chances of success are "very limited." Why? The "short period framed by our own domestic political debate" won't allow it, he says. Instead, Mr. Lugar wants a "sustainable bipartisan strategy" along the lines recommended in November by the Iraq Study Group. Last week, New Mexico's Pete Domenici noisily joined this bandwagon, as have several other Republican Senators, some of whom face tough re-election fights next year.

So let's see. Mr. Bush and al Qaeda's Ayman al Zawahiri agree that Iraq--not Afghanistan--is the central front in the war between them. But GOP Senators looking ahead to the 2008 elections have decided that the real front in the war lies not in Baghdad or Baquba but in the Beltway, and that a "bipartisan" redeployment is a worthier goal than backing the current battle plan.

The irony is that this political retreat is taking place even as General David Petraeus's military offensive is showing signs of progress. "These Anbar [province] sheikhs who are cooperating with the United States have made an enormous difference in what was the most dangerous province in Iraq," said New York Times reporter John Burns in a recent interview on PBS's "NewsHour." "I was out there today at the capital, Ramadi . . . and it's gone from being the most dangerous place in Iraq . . . to being one of the least dangerous places."

Mr. Burns was talking about the trend among Sunni tribal chieftains to ally themselves with the U.S. and the Shiite government of Iraq against what they see as their gravest enemy: al Qaeda interlopers bent on making themselves the leaders of the Sunni community in Iraq. Al Qaeda has taken note of this shift by trying to murder the sheikhs, only increasing the rift between them.

That's a battle al Qaeda is likely to lose, provided U.S. forces are available in sufficient numbers to help Iraqi forces defeat them. It's also a battle that could bring moderate Sunnis on the same side as the predominantly Shiite government--just the sort of "reconciliation" our foreign policy mandarins have demanded of Iraqi leaders as the price of continued U.S. support.

Or as retired General Jack Keane told the New York Sun: "The tragedy of these efforts is we are on the cusp of potentially being successful in the next year in a way that we have failed in the three-plus preceding years, but because of this political pressure it looks like we intend to pull out the rug from underneath that potential success."

Proving his point, Republicans are focusing on what Mr. Lugar describes as the unwillingness of most Iraqi leaders "to make sacrifices or expose themselves to risks on behalf of the type of unified Iraq that the Bush Administration had envisioned." He should tell that to Sunni parliamentarian Mithal al-Alusi, whose two sons were murdered by Sunni terrorists, or to every other Iraqi government member who has survived assassination attempts in order to keep the prospect of a democratic, unified Iraq alive. No one in Iraq is failing to "compromise" because he thinks he can count on an endless American presence. Iraqis are debating core questions of power-sharing and federalism that are the hardest issues for any democracy to settle.

...

The only Republican candidate for President who favors the cut and run strategy from Iraq is not even at * level in the polls. The top tier all support the current operations in Iraq. It is clear that there will be no political benefit to Republicans for backing what Luger and Domenici propose and there will probably be significant adverse reaction among Republicans. The NY Times is reporting that the administration is now having to talk about the withdrawal of troops next year because of these defections. This is a bad signal to send the enemy that we have on the run that they just have to hang on, that things are not yet hopeless because their allies in Washington are going to help them win what they could not win in Iraq. It is a signal that thrills those who want us to lose in Iraq and gains no advantage for the Republicans who send it. I know I will not support them and I think other Republicans will also not support their ridiculous suggestions.