Reid has no exit plan for war with Bush

NRO Editorial:

It’s dangerous to be in the middle of a civil war with dueling and embittered factions. Just ask Senate majority leader Harry Reid — who, in the midst of a deeply divided Democratic party, is flailing over a political strategy on Iraq. It seems that Reid went to war with the White House over the supplemental Iraq-spending bill without an exit plan.

He now faces a presidential veto of a bill that requires U.S. troops to begin withdrawing from Iraq in October of this year. Reid will be forced to retreat, and his Democratic Congress to deliver the $124 billion — without the arbitrary surrender date — to fund a war he has declared “lost.” If he had an ounce of the courage of the selfless troops he has undermined with this declaration, he would try to rally his forces to cut off funding for the war. But his political mission is to appease his party’s angry antiwar Left while ducking responsibility for a preemptive surrender.

A few months ago, Reid joined a unanimous Senate in voting to confirm Gen. David Petraeus as the new commander in Iraq, charged with a new mission and strategy. Although all the forces to conduct the new security operations won’t be in place until mid-June, General Petraeus reports early signs of progress on the ground. What does the Democrats’ armchair general make of the veteran commander’s assessment? “I don’t believe him,” Reid said on CNN, the latest in a series of gaffes. Unfortunately for Democrats, you go to war with the political commander you have.

In a dispute between Petraeus and Reid over military strategy and the state of the war, we know whose judgment we trust. When Reid is arguing that there is no purely military solution in Iraq, he loves to cite Petraeus. But Petraeus also — and repeatedly — says that improved security is a precondition of political progress. Appearing before the Senate in January, Petraeus said, “Military action to improve security, while not wholly sufficient to solve Iraq’s problems, is certainly necessary.” Reid is resolved — at least he’s resolute about something — to ignore this.

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As Rich Galen points out our enemies are searching for weakness to exploit and Reid is providing it in abundance. Reid's investment in and embrace of defeat still has its smarmy character of a Las Vegas hustler who will say anything to achieve his objective of conning American voters. The bad faith is palpable.