Dick Morris is a political strategist, so it’s not an indictment to say that he views the war in Iraq through a strategist’s prism, rather than as a national security or terrorism expert. He has argued in recent weeks that the president must commence a drawdown in Iraq to avoid a sweeping Democratic victory in 2008. Today he notes that while Democratic leaders claimed last week that the House passed legislation to force a redeployment, the legislation did ‘nothing of the sort.’ As was noted here, the legislation called upon the president to draw troops down to the level required under the missions he defined. The desire of House Democrats was clear–to reduce our exposure in Iraq–but the substance of the House bill doesn’t approach that goal. While I noted the misdirection associated with the bill, Morris sees something far more significant–a breach between Democratic leaders and their anti-war base:
Read the whole thing. Morris illustrates the conundrum facing the Democratic presidential candidates. Do what the base wants, and you lose credibility on national security. Stay responsible, and you risk having the base stay home on election day. Or worse: they might come out for Ralph Nader. On these points, he’s on firm ground. As I’ve argued before, the pacifism of the Democratic base poses a real problem for Democratic candidates, and there’s a strong whiff of Vietnam Syndrome about the party right now. But when he turns to war fighting, Morris goes astray. Because he’s a political strategist, he sees the possibility for compromise among moderate Democratic and Republican Senators that preserves a significant (but smaller) force in Iraq, with a narrower mandate. He says that the difference might be an ‘arithmetic’ one–a matter of only 40 or 50 thousand troops. Math may not be my best subject, but those sound like pretty big numbers; they represent a minimum of more than 25 percent of the current force in Iraq.
Notably, it would represent a reduction to a smaller troop level than prevailed at the start of the surge–when many analysts regarded the situation as untenable and demanded a change of strategy. And even though the mission would probably be different–limited to some combination of training Iraqi troops and fighting al Qaeda–the fact that a bloody Iraqi civil war was going on would probably not sit well with anyone (except perhaps, the New York Times). Morris is basically envisioning a halfway compromise: reducing the troops, rather than either withdrawing or maintaining needed levels, and narrowing the mission rather than either giving up or staying committed. But while halfway compromises may have worked well for Goldilocks, the situation in Iraq is more grim than Grimm. It won’t be accepted by the Democratic base, and those who favor victory won’t find much to like either. And for moderates to like it, they’ll have to accept an awful lot of Iraqi bloodshed. It’s not generally all that wise to bet against politicians choosing to split the difference, but as a Plan B, this leaves a lot to be desired.
