History Forum / General / British History / February 2007

Thoughtful & Provocative.

DSH
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THE WESTERN FRONT

The Antiwar Surge

Iraq is unpopular, but embracing defeat may prove politically disastrous for
Democrats.

BY BRENDAN MINITER

Tuesday, February 20, 2007
The Wall Street Journal

In mid-January an Associated Press-Ipsos poll found that public support for
President Bush's troop surge increased to 35%, up from 26% a few weeks
earlier. The same poll found that a slim majority of Americans were against
the war in Iraq, but 68% said they opposed shutting off funds to fight it,
and 60% said they would oppose Congress's withholding funds necessary to
send additional troops.

The poll was not an anomaly. Hillary Clinton and her chief strategist, Mark
Penn, himself a former pollster, know how to read public opinion surveys.

Which may explain why she steadfastly refuses to "apologize" for voting to
authorize the war in 2002 while also calling for Mr. Bush to end the war
before he leaves office and favoring a nonbinding Senate resolution opposing
an "escalation." The war may not be popular, but the public isn't ready to
support losing either.

What then is next in the war over the war? The House passed its nonbinding
resolution last week and won votes of just 17 Republicans. Rep. John Murtha,
who's spent more than two decades amassing political clout by doling out
defense earmarks, might prefer to "slow bleed" the administration by putting
conditions on money appropriated to fight the war. Mr. Murtha, with the
support of Speaker Nancy Pelosi, may even succeed at hamstringing the
president. But political success of such a strategy depends on two things:
first, that U.S. troops will fail to win on the ground in Iraq; second, that
a fickle public doesn't turn around and blame Democrats for that failure.

During the government shutdown in 1995, then-Speaker Newt Gingrich learned
the hard way that the public can turn on congressional leaders who pick
public fights with sitting president for little apparent gain. With the
nonbinding resolution, Speaker Pelosi might have signed up for co-ownership
of failure in Iraq, with little right to share credit for victory should the
surge succeed.

Correct. -- DSH

Neither the White House nor House Republican leaders counted votes or
pressured wayward members to vote against the House resolution last week,
though Minority Leader John Boehner did give an impassioned speech on the
floor laying out what's at stake should the U.S. lose the war. It's
instructive that under the circumstances, several dozen Republicans didn't
cross the aisle to give Ms. Pelosi bipartisan cover for shutting off the
president's moral authority to wage the war. The House Republican caucus
isn't responding to the loss of the majority last year by running away from
Iraq.

Arguably, waffling on the war is what is costly for Republicans. In June
Rep. Gil Gutknecht, a Minnesota Republican, cautioned other Republicans not
to go wobbly. A month later he went wobbly himself. After returning from
Iraq, he declared that the U.S. lacked "strategic control" of the country
and called for a limited troop withdrawal to "send a message" to Iraq's
government. In November the six-term congressman watched independent voters
abandon him as he lost by more than 5% to Democrat Tim Waltz. Meanwhile, in
a neighboring congressional district, Rep. John Kline, another Republican
facing a stiff challenge for his seat, didn't waver. He ended winning enough
support from independents to defeat FBI "whistleblower" Colleen Rowley by
16%.

Over in the Senate, Joe Lieberman recently warned that a showdown on the war
between the executive and legislative branches risked creating a
"constitutional crisis." But perhaps his most powerful political statement
is still being in the Senate after losing a Democratic primary last year to
antiwar activist Ned Lamont. The antiwar left is powerful enough to prevail
in a Democratic primary, but even in deeply blue Connecticut, it wasn't
capable of winning a statewide general election.

Sen. Barack Obama is popular on the presidential campaign trail, has written
two autobiographies and is a leading critic of the war. Former senator John
Edwards is also a steadfast critic of having invaded Iraq and has repeatedly
apologized for his vote authorizing military force. The risk for Democrats
is that the party's current antiwar slide won't stop once it reaches the
edge of public support. Instead it may leave the party where Ohio State
University political science professor John Mueller is taking the war
debate, in opposition not just to the war in Iraq but to the global war on
terror.

Which is where Pogue Gans and Pogue Surreyman are. -- DSH

In his new book "Overblown," Mr. Mueller argues that in response to the
Sept. 11 attacks, the Bush administration exaggerated the threat and waged a
global war, restricted civil liberties and endangered the U.S.'s standing in
the world. "Which is the greater threat: terrorism or our reaction against
it?" he asks. Come November 2008, we may have a definitive answer to where
the public stands on that question.

Mr. Miniter is assistant editor of OpinionJournal.com.  His column appears
Tuesdays.