Objectively Pro-War Democrats
Rick Perlstein says something here I think is worth repeating:
Supposed liberals, like my own senator, Illinois's Dick Durbin, pronounce themselves inclined to support the President's $197 billion supplemental request for Iraq funding--the one in which he tacked on an extra $50 billion at the last minute, perhaps just to prove that he could. Durbin said he would be for it in the same breadth as he noted to the Chicago Tribune that the request "seems likely to prolong troop levels at their current elevated number into the spring of 2008."
In other words, he's objectively pro-surge, and this even before the made-up report that's supposed to prove "progress."
If Democrats approve the additional 50 billion (and you know they will) they will be approving money for the war at a faster rate than the Republican Congress was. Remarkable.
Meanwhile, amongst the Democratic Presidential field, the main candidates, except for Richardson, appear to all want to leave residual forces in Iraq. Which is to say, despite on the one hand saying they "want to end the war", they actually don't, since as long as substantial numbers of troops are in Iraq (and enough troops to chase down Al-Qaeda is enough to be substantial), the insurgents won't stop attacking.
When Democrats passed the first supplemental, in one week they lost 10% approval ratings. That is, effectively, overnight.
The population of the US wants to leave Iraq. Iraqis want the US to leave Iraq. But neither Democrats nor Republicans want to leave Iraq. And that includes "liberals" like Durbin. They simply, objectively, do not wish to do so. We can speculate on the reasons - perhaps they are genuinely scared of being seen as "not supporting the troops" (ie, perhaps they're genuinely chickenshit); perhaps they are scared that George Bush will, if they don't give him money, arbitrarily get soldiers killed for no good reason by refusing to withdraw anyway; perhaps they are so caught up by Washington's elite (and generally wrong) foreign policy establishment and want to seem like reasonable adults to that group of "serious people"; perhaps, even, a few genuinely care about the possibility of genocide and want to stay as a result (though I really doubt most give a damn, Iraqi casualties never having bothered most of them every before).
Whatever the case is, most of them, as judged by their actions not their words, don't want to end the US's occupation of a foreign country that doesn't want them there.
Unfortunately for decision-makers in the US, however, who seem to still think that they create reality and that the decision is entirely theirs to make, the Iraqi resistance continues to slowly win the war - pushing the Brits out of Basra, destroying the ground transportation infrastructure necessary for resupply, and so on.
And the ethnic cleansing that is so feared "when the US leaves" is occuring at decent clip while the US is there, with Baghdad now a solidly majority Shia city, for example. I actually anticipate reduced violence in Baghdad in a few months, because hey, most of the Sunnis have already been killed or forced to flee.
Ethnic cleansing of that variety, of course, isn't about fighting the occupation army - it's about preparing for the war to come, when you don't want fifth column's of possible enemy supporters in your territory. Everyone's been doing it - Kurds cleansing out Sunnis and Shia; Shia cleansing out Sunnis and Kurds, and Sunnis cleansing out their areas as well.
The US isn't stopping it, indeed in its clumsy attempts to play factions off against each other, it's probably encouraging it.
And so the Iraq civil war goes on, the ethnic cleansing goes on, and so does the resistance against occupation. And meanwhile, in Washington, by bypartisan consensus, the occupation is never really expected to end, and the only difference for war policy between having Congress controlled by Democrats vs. Republicans has been that Democrats appear even more willing to give Bush money and rope than the Republicans were - but they whine about it more and try and pretend they are anti-war, when by their actions, not their words, it is clear that far too many of them are, objectively, for the occupation.
The Agonist |
