I watched with interest the Democrats YouTube presidential debate this week. It looks like the biggest point of contention among the candidates is to see who can declare defeat in Iraq and run for the border the fastest. It was like watching a reverse auction. “I’ve got six months, do I hear five? Yes! I’ve got a bid for five months, can I get four?” Only Joe Biden even hinted at the reality of what an all out sprint to the border would really mean for both our own troops security, as they would most certainly have to fight their way out, and most significantly, what it would mean for conditions in Iraq and the region if we prematurely pullout.
In 2004, Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) was clearly alone on the extreme left of the Democrat Presidential contestants with his pacifist blame-America-first views. Now in 2008, it appears every one of the would-be Commanders-in-Chief have raced to his side of the stage. It says a lot about the nature of this primary, but also about the nature of the Democrat primary voting base.
The war in Iraq is obviously the dominant issue of each party’s primary. With the front-loaded primary schedule, we will likely know the nominees by early February, and the general election campaign will effectively begin. At that point, the debate will shift to the broader question of national security, and the question before the expanded electorate will no longer be “who can we trust to get out of Iraq first?” The quest for the White House will be about “who can we trust to keep America safe?”
The Democrats may find they have made a serious miscalculation by demonstrating their willingness to declare defeat, scorn our military, leave the Middle East in near certain catastrophic bloody turmoil, and set the stage for a larger, more difficult conflict with Islamic jihad in the future — maybe even inside our own borders and across a more expanded portion of the globe.
Some of the Democrats’ natural supporters have begun to share the same concern. Mark Ribbing is the director of policy development at the Progressive Policy Institute, a left leaning Washington D.C. based think tank. Ribbling says, “Unless the Democratic Party can throw off its longstanding reputation for weakness on security matters, it will squander its present advantages and risk renewing the Republican lease on the White House for the foreseeable future.”
Ribbling points out that while the war is unpopular, and voters want a President who will lead a way out, the issue is bigger than that. “They (voters) want to know … that the [Democrat] party truly understands the gravity of the threats we face, and has what it takes to defeat them,” he wrote in the Wall Street Journal. Observing that the Democrat presidential contestants are pinning their White House hopes entirely on immediate withdrawal from Iraq, Rippling thinks, “This would be a mistake.” He questions if the Democrats will be able to convince general election voters that they understand the threat of Islamic jihad and can protect our “nation’s security interests in the region – including the eradication of terrorist strongholds, the deterrence of a broader war and the prevention of genocide.”
The general public’s dissatisfaction with the war and President Bush’s handling of it are clearly a matter of record. Bush will leave office in about 18 months, but the threat to America from Islamic jihad will not be gone with him. That reality will very much be the responsibility of the 44th President the moment he or she takes the oath of office. As America realizes that the real objective in Iraq is – and always has been – to make America more secure, the Democrats’ strategy to wave the white flag of defeat may well come back to haunt them.
Our troops do need to come home as soon as possible, but they need and deserve to come home victorious, after securing stability in Iraq and safety for America. That likely won’t be in four or five months. America needs a 44th President with the courage of Winston Churchill and the clarity of Ronald Reagan. I don’t see one in the Democrat field of defeatists.
America has always been committed to winning – not just for the sake of winning, but for the cause of righteousness and defense of freedom. As the campaign evolves toward November 2008 and America considers who might be best to keep us safe rather than who can declare defeat first, these Democrat white flag wavers may find themselves outside the White House looking in — which will be fine with me, and best for America.