Batfink's Beep -- 11-29-05

Archive: Look who's Worrying About A Troop Drawdown NOW

November 29, 2005

Fred Kaplan of Slate is worried, it seems. He's worried that George Bush's major address tomorrow at the US Naval Academy will include language about how much progress we are making in getting the Iraqi troops ready to handle their own security. He puts it like this:

"For several months now, many ... critics have predicted that, once the Iraqis passed their constitution and elected a new government, President Bush would declare his mission complete and begin to pull out[.]"

He goes on to fret:

"If any doubts remained about the administration's coming course, they should have been dispelled on Nov. 22, when Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told CNN, "I suspect that American forces are not going to be needed in the numbers that they are now that much longer." (She repeated the point that same day on Fox News.)"

"Fret"? yes, that's the tone as I read it. And in case you think I'm seeing something that's not there, get a load of this, later in his manifesto:

"Lost in this juggernaut toward a new consensus for withdrawal is whether it's the right course to take."

Yes. Mr. Kaplan is actually trying to sound concerned that Bush will announce, and follow through on, a pull-out, without properly evaluating whether it's the right thing to do.

If it strikes you as an odd thing for an American of the leftist, "We need to get the heck out of there right away" variety, to fret over, I'm with you. In fact, the Slate writer betrays that he himself doesn't REALLY think it's the wrong thing to do from a strategic, GWOT standpoint, even as he worries aloud that Bush might actually do it:

"I think it is [the right course to take], for many of the same reasons that Murtha, Sen. Joseph Biden (another recent convert), and others have laid out. The most compelling of these reasons is the most strictly pragmatic. As long as American troops stay there in high visibility and large numbers, Iraq will remain a weak, unstable state. The insurgency's ranks will swell with those who are simply opposed to occupation, especially a Christian occupation, with the result that nationalism, sectarianism, and jihadism will converge, to grave consequences for U.S. interests and Middle Eastern stability. Beyond that, Iraqi officials will not take their security responsibilities seriously, knowing that they can lean back on the Americans. As Professor Barry Posen of MIT has put it, the U.S. military presence "infantilizes" Iraqi politics."

So, why exactly is Fred so worried, then? Here's the pay-off:

"Bush could pull a win-win-win out of this shift. He could pre-empt the Democrats' main line of attack against his administration, stave off the prospect of (from the GOP's perspective) disastrous elections in 2006 and '08, and, as a result, bolster his presidency's otherwise dwindling authority within his own party and among the general population."

That's right: Fred Kaplan, who claims to be concerned about our troops being in Iraq too long, and agrees with Congressman Murtha and Joe Biden that our boys overseas have become part of the problem, and not incidentally, are in needless danger, nevertheless DOESN'T want Bush to actually draw down the force there, BECAUSE IT COULD BE RECEIVED WELL POLITICALLY.

Note this well if you were ever inclined to think that people who considered Murtha's call for withdrawl to be a call for surrender were unfairly besmirching his patriotism. After all, not only did Murtha himself vote AGAINST an immediate pullout a few days after he called so passionately for it, but now one of his supporters has shown us why: The people might actually like it, and call it a job well done. In other words, he doesn't want Bush to pull out some troops after another successful Iraqi election -- that might look too much like victory. He just wants to hit Bush for NOT pulling out, because it helps his own party to do so, and nothing matters more to him than that.

This kind of "eat your cake and have it too"-ism is fascinating stuff. I wonder how many more folks on the left, who spent all last week glorying in Rep. Murtha's call for withdrawl, and then howling in rage over its rejection 403-3 in the House, ALSO secretly don't actually want it to happen, not because it might conceiveably leave Iraq inadequately defended, but simply because it might prove politically popular?

Think about it the next time someone tries to tell you that the left doesn't want us to lose the war, because that's EXACTLY what they want. They want us to lose because the President is a Republican. They'd be just as patriotic, and eager for US victory as anyone, if only a Democrat were the one who would get the credit for it all. But not if it's a Republican.

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