Dems agree, surge working
[Amazing that the Petraeus report is likely to come on Sept 11.]
http://www.abcnews.go.com/Politics/TheNote/Story?id=3105288&page=1
August was supposed to be the month that crystallized Democratic
opposition to the Iraq war, in time for a fall bipartisan push by
Congress. Yet nowhere is the political tentativeness more on display
than on the war — with members of Congress sharing impressions that
something is working. “Staking out positions that could complicate
efforts to achieve party unity in September, a few Democratic
lawmakers have returned expressing support for a continued troop
presence,” writes Jonathan Weisman of The Washington Post.
The broad argument Democrats are making: The security situation is
improving, but it’s too late for the Iraqi government to take
advantage of it. “The Democrats’ reframing of the war debate helps
them avoid criticism for naysaying U.S. military achievements while
still advocating a speedy pullout from what they say is a civil war
the Iraqi government cannot quell,” writes the Washington Times’ S.A.
Miller.
Two leading senators — Levin, D-Mich., and Warner, R-Va., are out
with a new report with nuggets that play off of that (rather muddy)
message. “The ’surge’ is having ‘measurable results’ ” that should
make compromises possible, they write, per ABC’s Z. Byron Wolf. But
they’re calling for new Iraqi leadership because “we are not
optimistic about the prospects for those compromises.” Levin, the
chairman of the Armed Services Committee, is going the furthest, in
calling for a new prime minister if Nouri al-Maliki can’t force quick
compromises.
Cue the Republican talking point: Democrats want to pull out of Iraq
when they acknowledge that we’ve finally got the right strategy. This
has the makings of a national-security trap (not that Democrats have
ever walked into one before). And there were mixed (if not
contradictory) messages everywhere when Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton
and Sen. John McCain took their turns yesterday before the Veterans
of Foreign Wars convention in Kansas City.
Clinton, D-N.Y., facing a crowd that’s to her right on the war, said
elements of the new military strategy are “working” (what will Sen.
Barack Obama say about that?) but added that it’s unlikely to make a
difference. “I know we may disagree about whether there is or isn’t a
military solution to this war,” Clinton said, further defining her
evolving position on Iraq, per The New York Times’ Jeff Zeleny.