With the rise in support for the strategy in Iraq, the decline in support for the Democratic Congress and the dismal failure of anti-war films at the box office, the National Security creds of the Democratic party is in desperate need of rehabilitation. Even if they don't recognize this fact, others sympathetic to the Democrats do and are trying to help.
Or at least it seems that way.
Michael O'Hanlon, writing in USA Today tries to get the Democrats to take credit for the recent success in Iraq rather than deny that these successes are occurring
Rarely in U.S. history has a political party diagnosed a major failure in the country's approach to a crucial issue of the day, led a national referendum on the failing policy, forced a change in that policy that led to major substantive benefits for the nation — and then categorically refused to take any credit whatsoever for doing so.
This is, of course, the story of the Democrats and the Iraq war over the past 13 months. Without a Democratic takeover of the Congress in 2006, there is little chance that President Bush would have acknowledged his Iraq policy to be failing, and that Gen. David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker would have been accorded the resources and the policy latitude needed to radically improve the situation on the ground.
Right. I mean, they absolutely could make that argument, but the problem is their intention was never to succeed in Iraq as much as it was criticizing Bush. It didn't matter what course Bush took, the strategy was always to criticize it and use it as pressure to get us out of Iraq. So it's no surprise that it hasn't occurred to them to take credit for the success. Success to them would require failure in Iraq.
Democrats were not the authors of the surge and in fact generally opposed it. But without their pressure, it probably never would have happened.
I doubt it. The important difference Bush was looking to succeed and would do what it took to attempt to make that happen, even if it meant reversing course. Democrats, on the other hand, were looking for a way to assure he didn't.
And to claim that they forced the President to succeed in Iraq would necessitate that they take the position that success was a goal. This of course, would rile the net roots.
But getting the meme out there, that Democrats were never against the war, but were against losing the war, is likely helpful. And may yet be taken up during the National Campaign when the net roots are more marginalized.
Another interesting instance of this is the Tom Hank's vehicle Charlie Wilson's War which will be around theater's for the Christmas season. Now this book by 60 Minutes producer George Crile since 2003 and I read it when it first came out. It's is a terrific, well-written story of the unlikely group of individuals that came together, for the most part under the radar of the Regan Administration and the CIAs seventh floor, and conceived and executed a plan that would ultimately result in forcing the Soviets to withdraw from Afghanistan in defeat. Payback, one might say, for Vietnam.
Now the movie is coming out just in time for the election season. Kyle Smith writing for Pajamas Media writes
How strange is this film? .... So strange that Democrats are shown killing Commies. Not calling for sanctions against them; not filing paperwork against them in the U.N.; not calling for investigations of how their prisoners of war were treated: just getting them in the crosshairs, and pow.
Hard to believe but it's all true.
No thriller writer would dare invent Wilson, a six-feet-four-inch Texas congressman,liberal on social issues but rabidly anti-Communist, a boozer, engaged in serial affairs and wheeler-dealer of consummate skill. Only slightly less improbable is Gust Avrakotos, a blue-collar Greek immigrant who joined the CIA when it was an Ivy League preserve and fought his elitist colleagues almost as ruthlessly as he fought the Soviet Union in the Cold War's waning years. In conjunction with President Zia of Pakistan in the 1980s, Wilson and Arvakotos circumvented most of the barriers to arming the Afghan mujahideen-distance, money, law and internal CIA politics, to name a few. Their coups included getting Israeli-modified Chinese weapons smuggled into Afghanistan, with the Pakistanis turning a blind eye,and the cultivation of a genius-level weapons designer and strategist named Michael Vickers, a key architect of the guerrilla campaign that left the Soviet army stymied. The ultimate weapon in Afghanistan was the portable Stinger anti-aircraft missile, which eliminated the Soviet's Mi-24 helicopter gunships and began the train of events leading to the collapse of the U.S.S.R. and its satellites. A triumph of ruthless ability over scruples...
All this while the Reagan Administration was consumed with Nicaragua and "Iran-Contra"..
There is no doubt, that while many issues consume American voters, Security is high among them. To win a National Election for the White House, Democrats have to shake the image of passivity and multilateralism in this area.
Even if they as a party don't understand this, other do.
And even if Democrats won't try to rehabilitate their own brand's image, others obviously are trying.
But ultimately, it is only an image and significant changes in the Party leadership will be necessary before image and reality are even marginally united
