Pathetic.
One expected no better of the Senate Democrats, who want to get out of Iraq as soon as possible, or sooner than possible–most of them don’t really care–and who want to embarrass president Bush. But couldn’t the Senate Republicans have stood and fought against passing an irresponsible resolution suggesting that Americans want to get out of Iraq more than we want to win?
The Republican leadership may have figured they didn’t have the votes to defeat the Democratic proposal without giving their members a weaker alternative to vote for. But better to lose such a vote by a small margin than to go on record voting for a resolution that sends a signal of irresolution and weakness at precisely the time when a message of strength is most needed. After all, in precisely a month, the Iraqis will vote for their first government under the new constitution, and one thing they must weigh in their calculations is whether they can count on U.S. staying power in the fight against the terrorists. With today’s vote in the Senate, the Republican leadership, apparently working hand in glove with White House staff, showed itself today to be tactically myopic and politically timid.
One hopes Republicans in the House will show more spine. One trusts that President Bush will not bend in any way to these winds of worry. One hopes that a year from now this vote is simply remembered as a minor hiccup on the way to success and victory in Iraq. But one doesn’t win a war by showing weakness. And one doesn’t win a political fight by half capitulating to one’s opponents, and, in effect, accepting the premises of their critique.
All honor to the 13 Republican senators who stood up against the me-too, we-want-to-get-out-as-well-but-not-quite-as-quickly, Republican leadership: Bunning, Burr, Chambliss, Coburn, DeMint, Graham, Inhofe, Isakson, Kyl, McCain, Sessions, Thune, and Vitter. Let’s hope their colleagues reconsider and join their ranks in the near future.
–William Kristol
