Iran, Iraq, Political wind, War on Terror

The Appeasement Caucus

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Terrorists do not hold elections and they cannot win the War on Terror on the ground. Yet Senators Lugar and Domenici (as well a slew of Democrats in Congress) seem more concerned with their own reelection chances than the welfare of the Iraqi people or taking the fight to the enemy, as the Wall Street Journal indicates this morning:

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 Washington Times also weighed in this morning:

It’s important to be at least somewhat grounded in reality about what is significant about the defeatist posture taken by Mr. Lugar et. al. — and what is business as usual for a certain type of Republican… In short, no one remotely familiar with their records would consider any of them to be among the Senate’s conservative intellectual giants. On the contrary, they are poll-driven politicians who want to hold on to power, and the polls indicate that many Americans are decidedly unhappy about the direction of the war.
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The most pernicious thing about all the talk of bringing U.S. troops home is the fact that it would reverse the successes that American troops are achieving. For months, this newspaper has reported the story of how Sunnis in Anbar province in western Iraq are taking up arms against al Qaeda. The same thing now appears to be occurring in Baqubah, located in Diyala province northeast of Baghdad, in which American troops launched an offensive June 19 to dislodge al Qaeda forces. “The big news on the streets today is that the people of Baqubah are generally ecstatic, although many hold in reserve a serious concern that we will abandon them again,” blogger Michael Yon [Editor — See his latest dispatch here], who is embedded with U.S. troops in Baqubah, reported Friday. Similarly, Michael Gordon of the New York Times also reported Friday on the remarkable successes that U.S. troops in Diyala are having. It should also be noted that Iran — now a leading supporter of both Sunni and Shi’ite jihadists fighting U.S. forces in Iraq — has shown itself to be vulnerable to economic pressure — witness the riots over gasoline rationing that have swept the country.

So what do senators want to do? To throw the mullahs a diplomatic lifeline. Mr. Domenici, along with Sen. Ken Salazar, Colorado Democrat, and Republican Sens. Robert Bennett of Utah and Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, who both should know better, is supporting S. 1545, a bill to make the 79 recommendations of the Iraq Study Group (including talks with Tehran and Damascus) the official policy of the U.S. government. When you combine this foolishness with the parade of amendments calling for troop “redeployments” and setting timetables for withdrawal from Iraq by April 1, 2008, it’s clear that Mr. Reid and his “bipartisan” coalition of helpers are poised to send another unmistakable message of weakness to the jihadists starting today.

Instead of talking about withdrawing troops, Congress ought to conduct a full debate about finally confronting Iran. Senator Joseph Lieberman took up that gauntlet last week and we will see if anyone there other than he has such courage.

Iraq, Political wind

Victory in Iraq is what the Democrats fear most

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On July 6, 2007, Bill Roggio showed that the New York Times misled the American people about the progress of post-surge military operations in Iraq by the latter’s citation of two-month old data to characterize the current situation in Baghdad:

On June 4, The New York Times released partial data from a classified memorandum that stated only 29 percent of Baghdad was secured, and provided little context to the status of the remaining 71 percent of Baghdad. The article was widely interpreted as heralding the failure of the Baghdad Security Plan, as four months into the operation, less than one third of Baghdad was secured. The New York Times also claimed that senior U.S. generals leaders stated Baghdad was expected to be secured by July, while General David Petraeus said this was never a realistic goal…
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The numbers have changed dramatically in the two months since April. Today about 48 percent of Baghdad is secured, with 7 percent under the control of the Iraqi security forces in the retain phase, 16 percent of Baghdad has yet to be cleared, and about 36 percent of Baghdad is in the process of being cleared. In a little over two months, the Baghdad Security Plan resulted in a jump of about 30 percent of the neighborhoods secured (19 percent in April to 48 percent in June), a drop of neighborhoods in the disruption phase of about 25 percent (41 percent in April to 16 percent in June), and a steady state of neighborhoods in the clearance phase (about 35 percent).

The Times and the cut and run crowd (Democrats and Republicans) have to lie for the America people will not demand a time-tabled withdrawal from Iraq as long as our troops are making progress there. Fear not, leftists, liberal Democrats, and happy footed Republicans. Even when it is not good news, the biased mainstream media comes out in support of the enemy [I’ve highlighted the aiders and abettors]:

Al Qaeda in Iraq conducted a major mass casualty attack in the town of Amirli in northern Salahadin province, and two others near the Iranian border in Diyala. The suicide bomb in Amirli was massive, and the results devastating. A suicide truck bomber “laden with two tons of explosives detonated in an outdoor market,” CNN reported. The high estimates put the number of killed at 150 and the wounded at well over 250. Most of those killed were women and children. Al Qaeda in Iraq is probing at the seams of the joint Coalition and Iraqi operations… The attacks on the Shia and Kurdish villages are likely attempts to incite further sectarian violence as well as to secure a possible route to flee Iraq into Iran.
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The attacks in northern Salahadin and along the Iranian border highlight the progress of the Baghdad Security Plan, al Qaeda’s capabilities in Diyala current holes in the Iraqi security Forces in the region. First, the major attacks were conducted for away from the center of gravity in Iraq, which is Baghdad, or even the center of gravity in Diyala, which is Baqubah. A major goal of the Baghdad Security Plan is to secure the capital and the outlying regions.

Yet despite the location of the attacks, the Associated Press identified the attacks as occurring in Baghdad (See “Suicide bombings kills 73 people in Baghdad.”) Northern Salahadin and Diyala provinces quite distant from Baghdad.

Those deliberate media lies preface what will occur this week, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s renewed push for a scheduled withdrawal of our troops from Iraq:

“We haven’t done enough,” said Mr. Reid, a onetime moderate [Editor — Lie alert: Senator Reid has always been a liberal] who has evolved into one of the party’s most fervent critics of the war.
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Sensing momentum from the new Republican defections, Mr. Reid and other leading Democrats intend to force a series of votes over the next two weeks on proposals to withdraw troops and limit spending. Democrats are increasingly confident they can assemble majority opposition to administration policies.

“It is going to be harder for Republicans to not sign on to something with bite in it, a clear Congressional assessment that change is needed,” said Senator Carl Levin, the Michigan Democrat who is chairman of the Armed Services Committee. “I think it is more likely there will be a majority around here that say we should begin to redeploy some forces by a certain date, and I hope it would be a larger majority.”

The coming debate will provide a showcase for senators from both parties to debate Iraq war strategy. The four Democratic presidential candidates in the Senate are expected to push their own antiwar proposals and views, and contrast their stances with those of Republicans, notably Senator John McCain of Arizona, who has been among the strongest supporters of the war.

The Times added one bit of truth, apparently to “balance” their report:

The Democratic inability to bring quick change, coupled with a Republican backlash to the rejected immigration proposal, has sent Congressional ratings plummeting. “The Democratic Congress has lower ratings than President Bush,” said Senator Sam Brownback, Republican of Kansas. “You have to try hard to do that.”

Oh, by the way, the editors — that vaunted group of military experts at the Times — also provided some advice to the Bush administration on how to withdraw from Iraq in an editorial they entitled The Road Home:

The United States has about 160,000 troops and millions of tons of military gear inside Iraq. Getting that force out safely will be a formidable challenge. The main road south to Kuwait is notoriously vulnerable to roadside bomb attacks. Soldiers, weapons and vehicles will need to be deployed to secure bases while airlift and sealift operations are organized. Withdrawal routes will have to be guarded. The exit must be everything the invasion was not: based on reality and backed by adequate resources.

The United States should explore using Kurdish territory in the north of Iraq as a secure staging area. Being able to use bases and ports in Turkey would also make withdrawal faster and safer. Turkey has been an inconsistent ally in this war, but like other nations, it should realize that shouldering part of the burden of the aftermath is in its own interest.

Cut and run most of our troops, the Times says, but leave a few nearby to ignore the bloodbath and take an occasional Clinton-like pot shot at al Qaeda in Iraq without actually having forces on the ground to identify them from the civil war’s opponents:

Americans must be clear that Iraq, and the region around it, could be even bloodier and more chaotic after Americans leave. There could be reprisals against those who worked with American forces, further ethnic cleansing, even genocide. Potentially destabilizing refugee flows could hit Jordan and Syria. Iran and Turkey could be tempted to make power grabs. Perhaps most important, the invasion has created a new stronghold from which terrorist activity could proliferate.
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Leaving troops in Iraq might make it too easy — and too tempting — to get drawn back into the civil war and confirm suspicions that Washington’s real goal was to secure permanent bases in Iraq. Mounting attacks from other countries could endanger those nations’ governments.
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The White House should make this choice after consultation with Congress and the other countries in the region, whose opinions the Bush administration has essentially ignored. The bottom line: the Pentagon needs enough force to stage effective raids and airstrikes against terrorist forces in Iraq, but not enough to resume large-scale combat.

The Times hopes the international community will dissuade Turkey and Iran from interferring and fails to mention that Saudi Arabia will surely aide the Sunni minority against the Shiites in a civil war.

What the Times and the Democrats fear most is that the current plan will continue to make progress in Iraq, eventually secure Baghdad, and start to clear al Qaeda from the outlying regions. That would kill a bunch of terrorists that we would not have to contend with elsewhere, leave the Democratic Party’s candidates for President in ’08 looking even more pathetic, and ruin Senator Chuck Hagel’s wishful thinking that a Democrat in the Oval office will appoint him as the Secretary of Defense in 2009.