Dems hoist the goal post and keep them in motion

Jack Kelly:

Democrats in Congress are scrambling to move the goalposts before General David Petraeus reports on the situation in Iraq. Democrats used to argue that we should withdraw because we couldn't win militarily.

"I believe that this war is lost, and this surge is not accomplishing anything," Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., told journalists in April.

Now that it is plain even to most of the Democratic members of Congress who have visited Iraq recently that we are winning militarily, it's time to change the game.

Okay, so we're winning militarily, but we should get out of Iraq anyway because not enough political progress is being made, the current Democratic line goes.

The goalpost moving began in earnest Tuesday with a hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on the recent report by the Government Accountability Office that the government of Iraq has failed to meet 13 of 18 "benchmarks" of progress toward political reconciliation.

The GAO report was designed to find failure. The Iraqi government was judged only on whether or not a particular benchmark has been met, not whether progress has been made toward the goal. A Department of Defense analysis in July found the Iraqi government was making "satisfactory" progress on eight benchmarks; "unsatisfactory" progress on six others, with two being mixed and two others too early to judge.

There are few criticisms of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki with which I don't agree. He has been weak, more interested in pursuing sectarian goals than national reconciliation, and too friendly to Iran.

"Mr. Maliki is the elected leader of Iraq," said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. "He has an opportunity to amend the consitutiton, to relieve the civil strife, and therefore the violence. No initiatives have been taken."

Ms. Pelosi has things backwards. Political reconciliation follows battlefield success. It doesn't precede it and can't substitute for it.

And it's a bit cheeky of Ms. Pelosi to criticize Mr. Maliki's government so harshly, since she was partly responsible for his election.

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President Bush's Labor Day visit to Anbar province, where he met with Sunni tribal leaders once allied with al Qaida who now are fighting it, illustrated that political reconciliation can be built from the bottom up.

Before they climb out further onto their current limb, Democrats should pay heed to an AP dispatch from Helsinki, Finland Monday.

"Representatives from Sunni and Shiite groups in Iraq agreed on a road map to peace that ended Monday," the AP said. The talks were moderated by veterans of the negotiations that led to a peace settlement in Northern Ireland in 1998.

The Iraqi parliament also reconvened Tuesday. On its agenda are bills to share oil revenues, and to permit former members of the Baath party who have no criminal records to get government jobs. If either passes, it will be hard to argue that political progress isn't being made.

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Where will they take the goal post then? Hiding the goal post is not an option.

Desperation for defeat usually precedes a rout. In this case the rout they are leading to is their own.