Democrats' desperation for defeat is out in the open

Opinion Journal:

We're going to pick up Senate seats as a result of this war. Senator Schumer has shown me numbers that are compelling and astounding.

--Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, April 12.

Gen. David Petraeus is in Washington this week, where on Monday he briefed President Bush on the progress of the new military strategy in Iraq. Today he will give similar briefings on Capitol Hill, but maybe he should save his breath. As fellow four-star Harry Reid recently informed America, the war Gen. Petraeus is fighting and trying to win is already "lost."

Mr. Reid has since tried to "clarify" that remark, and in a speech Monday he laid out his own strategy for Iraq. But perhaps we ought to be grateful for his earlier candor in laying out the strategic judgment--and nakedly political rationale--that underlies the latest Congressional bid to force a withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq starting this fall. By doing so, he and the Democrats are taking ownership of whatever ugly outcome follows a U.S. defeat in Iraq.

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As for Iran, Mr. Reid's strategy of defeat would guarantee that the radical mullahs of Tehran have more influence in Baghdad than the moderate Shiites of Najaf. It would also make the mullahs even more confident that they can build a bomb with impunity and no fear of any Western response.

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As the Washington Times points out in its editorial today Reid has become incoherent in his rationale while pushing his agenda for defeat.

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... In December he appeared on ABC's "This Week" and said, twice, that he supported a surge in troop levels that was temporary and a part of a larger plan, drawing the ire of the anti-war left. Shortly thereafter, Mr. Reid pulled a maladroit about-face. "The surge is a bad idea," he concluded in a Jan. 5 letter to President Bush.

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He was for the surge before he was against it. Now he is just against winning and is not going to listen to the facts about what is really happening in Iraq which might challenge his judgment. It appears that picking up Senate seats is his primary objectives and he thinks losing the war is the key to doing that. It is time to challenge his patriotism.