Iraq Withdrawal - Another missed Democratic opportunity

GOP policy memes must come from the same place as dance crazes and fashion trends. In this case, it is the Democratic Party which finds itself still wearing skinny knit ties after the kool kidz have moved on to impeccably-knotted 3 1/2-inch silks.

Suddenly, the most viral right-wing talking point in circulation is how we have to get out of Iraq sooner rather than later.

Bill O'Reilly coughed it up on the February 20th edition of his show on FOX "News."

There are so many nuts in the country -- so many crazies -- that we can't control them. And I don't -- we're never gonna be able to control them. So the only solution to this is to hand over everything to the Iraqis as fast as humanly possible. Because we just can't control these crazy people.

Next, Willam F. Buckley makes a smilar, though obviously more coherent and articulate, argument in The National Review. He begins with the stark assessment that the U.S. mission is Iraq has failed. Not that it is failing, mind you, but that it is all over but the shouting and, of course, the dying.

Mr. Bush has a very difficult internal problem here because to make the kind of concession that is strategically appropriate requires a mitigation of policies he has several times affirmed in high-flown pronouncements. His challenge is to persuade himself that he can submit to a historical reality without forswearing basic commitments in foreign policy.

He will certainly face the current development as military leaders are expected to do: They are called upon to acknowledge a tactical setback, but to insist on the survival of strategic policies.

Yes, but within their own counsels, different plans have to be made. And the kernel here is the acknowledgment of defeat.

Look for this little germ to spread in the days and weeks to come.

Some commentators are interpreting this thread of thought as a challenge to the Bush administration. I disagree. These right-wing pronouncements of the need to get out of Iraq are not off the grid at all. They are the grid. This new meme is the framework for the Bush administration's withdrawal from Iraq.

Back in November, I proposed that the end of America's involvement in Iraq would begin in 2006 and that it would be executed with the fall elections in mind:

Despite his tough talk, President Bush and his supplicants in congress know that the U.S. posture in Iraq is unsustainable. They know we cannot stay there indefinitely. They are just waiting for an opportune moment to begin the withdrawal. It would be suicidal for Democrats to underestimate the Republicans' ability to frame the inevitable pullout as a victory for Bush and the GOP.

The moment will come in the spring of 2006. Bush will announce the withdrawal plan on Memorial Day. The first troops will come home just in time for the 4th of July. There will be victory parades. Bush will show his face at as many of these events as the laws of space and time allow. There will be ceaseless photo- and video-ops of GOP lawmakers with Guard and Reserve units from the American heartland. The Summer of Homecoming will roll right into the fall campaign season.

Lee Greenwood's "God Bless the USA" plays as the video montage begins. Fields of grain wave in a gentle breeze on a sunlit morning. Small-town shopkeepers open up for business on main street. A man mows his lawn. A dog barks.

A Greyhound bus pulls to a stop in front of a white house with a wrap-around porch and an enormous American flag over the front steps. A young man in uniform steps off the bus and stands there, looking at the house. He takes a deep breath. He smiles.

A buxom, yet wholesome, young woman bounds down the front steps and down the walkway. Right behind her, a five year old smiles and laughs as he tries to keep up. The woman throws her arms around the neck of her returning hero. She weeps tears of joy against his broad chest. He pulls her close and buries his face in her hair. Music swells. The boy hugs daddy's legs, a teddy bear in one hand and an American flag in the other.

This American family reunion was brought to you by your Republican Party and President George W. Bush. God bless the USA. Welcome home.

Meanwhile, Democrats who wanted to look tough and resolute by insisting we "stay the course" in Iraq will be left with literally nothing to say.

If the Democratic Party wants to avoid permanent irrelevance, the time to speak, the time to lead, is now. Otherwise, the party will have no moral authority or political viability in 2006, 2008 or beyond. If Democrats do not lead America out of Iraq, Americans will leave them behind.

I went on to suggest that it would benefit the Democrats to propose, before the new year, a withdrawal plan of their own. I suggested that they should call it the American Homecoming Resolution and that the resolution should call for troops to begin coming home in January. Well, here we are in February and Republicans have beaten them to the punch.

John Murtha became an object of derision among Republicans and of embarrassed condecension among Democrats when he declared the need for a withdrawal plan. Now, Republicans are getting on board the homecoming train and Democrats, having staked out their own piece of Bush's "stay the course" ground, find their feet stuck to the platform.