Perspiration is the best remedy for exasperation

Perspiration is the best remedy for exasperation.

Since yesterday, I’ve been feeling exasperated at the Senate vote on Iraq.

On its face, just words, there’s little out of line to Congressional prerogatives in co-governance. It requires quarterly reports on progress in the Iraq war. Instead of the Democrat preferred wording for “a campaign plan with estimated dates for the phased redeployment of the United States Armed Forces from Iraq,” defeated by 58-40, the Senate found 79-19 consensus to require quarterly reports and a schedule for reaching full Iraqi sovereignty.

On the domestic and world stage, however, these are words that make no war fighting sense, embolden our and the Iraqi peoples’ adversaries, and only provide fig-leaf political cover to both Democrats who are anti-war, waffling, or intimidated by their Party’s leftist base, and timidly self-preoccupied Republicans – the majority on both sides of the aisle. On the other hand, the nineteen Senators voting against the consensus represent the harder-line ones: six Democrats committed to cut-and-run (Kennedy, Kerry, Leahy, Harkin, Conrad and Byrd), and thirteen Republicans (including McCain, who hasn’t wavered on seeing the ultimate stakes).

With 54% of Americans polled agreeing, “In view of the developments since we first sent our troops to Iraq, do you think the United States made a mistake in sending troops to Iraq?”, politicians are doing what politicians usually do in seeking electoral advantage or cover. Bill Clinton’s famous “triangulation” sense for being on all bases at once, while not moving toward home plate, is evident: “Saddam is gone. It’s a good thing, but I don’t agree with what was done,” he told students at the American University of Dubai. “It was a big mistake. The American government made several errors…one of which is how easy it would be to get rid of Saddam and how hard it would be to unite the country.”

Rare clear supporter of the Iraq engagement, Senator Lieberman of Connecticut, a difficult state from which to be firm on Iraq, still rebutted his former President and colleagues, saying: “He was, for us, a ticking time bomb that, if we did not remove him, I am convinced would have blown up, metaphorically speaking, in America’s face.” Indeed, the excessively half-measures under the Clinton administration did persuade bin Laden that 9/11 was the next logical step. And, Saddam’s successful deception of the world’s intelligence agencies (and, of course, Senate Democrats who now glibly exploit the public’s amnesia) that he possessed stocks of WMD’s with which to retaliate against efforts to topple him, was his logical response: play chicken with chickens.

Lieberman continues: “If we withdraw prematurely, there will be civil war, and there is a great probability that others in the neighborhood will come in,” Iran, Turkey, Saudis, Jordan, for example, to exploit or protect their narrower security, self-preservation or expansionist interests setting off a larger, regional war far more dangerous to the world.

Lieberman, harkens back to the watershed in post-WWII statesmanship by Republican Senator Arthur Vandenberg joining with then more internationalist Democrats to steer his Party to recognize that, as Vandenberg said, “under our indispensable two-party system, to unite our official voice at the water’s edge so that America speaks with maximum authority against those who would divide and conquer us and the free world.”

Lieberman then points out the encouragement given the strategy of our present adversaries. “Terrorists know they cannot defeat us in Iraq, but they also know they can defeat us in America by breaking the will and steadfast support of the American people for this cause.”

The Democrat’s Senate leader, Harry Reid, accedes to our and the Iraqi peoples’ adversaries, saying: “Today, you saw a vote of no-confidence on the Bush administration’s policy on Iraq.”

But, as Senator Lieberman clearly refutes the revisionist-history declaration of war against the war by his fellow Democrats: “The danger is that by spending so much attention on the past here, we contribute to a drop in public support among the American people for the war, and that is consequential.” Anti-war Democrats are clear in that strategy of war upon the war. As their spokesmagazine puts it: “Ever since Senate minority leader Harry Reid staged a surprise shutdown of the senate on November 1, Democrats have pounded the Bush Administration for twisting and manipulating prewar intelligence. On Tuesday senate Democrats finally injected themselves into the postwar phase as well.” The piece continues, regarding Republican watering down of the Democrat’s language, “Such cosmetic political maneuvering isn’t likely to fool the American public,” polls showing a majority in favor of reducing troop levels in Iraq.

The Senate vote, aside from further undermining public resolve, is antithetical to war fighting as well. Those who say the Senate vote puts disputatious Iraqis on notice to get on with their key part in agreeing a viable political arrangement and more fully fighting their part in the war are correct. But, they ignore that it does take time and turmoil to literally build a political structure from scratch, under the best of circumstances, not to mention in the midst of a war for survival. They ignore that brave Iraqis stand up daily to do so while others naturally waver in personal considerations of safety or advantage, watching for whether the U.S. can be depended upon. They ignore the several hundred thousand Iraqis in army and security forces increasingly taking the front in defeating foreign and domestic insurgents. Senators who voted for the resolution yesterday, for whatever rationale, sent them a clear signal to hedge.

Furthermore, a simple fact is that wars are not as rational a planned endeavor as most might suppose. Even those who study past wars, retrospectively unearthing plans and divining the big picture or strategic sense, sometimes mistake ultimate results for the fortuitous, messy path that yielded them, and must recognize that is imposing a neat structure on what was more often improvisation, perseverance, weight of resources, and exploitation of what are turned into fateful enemy mistakes. There were far more military experts, politicians and scholars in 1945 sure of the inevitability or brilliance of Allied strategy and tactics than in 1939 or 1941 who could have delineated how we’d get there. The “incrementalism” that dominated President Johnson’s warfighting strategy in Vietnam did not signal resolve but rather warning and time to prepare and counter against what was perceived as our ultimate irresolution. President Nixon’s increased unpredictability and ferocity, however, brought serious results both on the battlefield and in Hanoi’s calculations that enabled withdrawal of our troops and a reasonable amount of time and chance for South Vietnam’s surviving viability.

More quarterly reports, beyond the piles and piles of reports probably not read now on the Hill, only provide for more dry statistical paper-shuffling that, at best, by the time collected are outdated or, at worst, become straight-jackets or tails-wagging-dog impositions on flexible tactics. Moreover, they provide more ammunition for retrospective cherry-picking as predictions in war are fleeting but useful to support political attacks by domestic adversaries.

Congresswoman Jane Harman, a centrist pro-defense Democrat who is the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, outlines today her “strategy for an exit from Iraq.” It’s worth reading, especially as it offers as original what is already being done! That’s the vapidity of much commentary.

I just took a look at the sitemeter for the blog Good News From the Front, a good and easy source of details and links to what’s happening in Iraq, rarely reported or in depth in the dominant media. I found 182 average daily visits, an indicator of the self-imposed ignorance and confusion so many blame on the administration or media that won’t be resolved by 100 more Bush speeches or themselves ill-informed rants against the MSM or Senators.

Of all the commentators, Hugh Hewitt has done the most constructive thing for countering this spineless or self-preserving drift in the Senate. He provides the email addresses and phone numbers for Senators Frist, McConnell, Warner, and the Congressional switchboard number to reach any representative. Phone and email your members of Congress.

As the Washington Times’ Tony Blankley succinctly reminds us, “The Republican Senate leadership, sensing they might lose enough Republican senators (six or more) to let the Democratic amendment pass, decided to quibble with rather than oppose the infamous document. So they scratched out the explicit timeline to desertion and added fine sounding phrases, such as calling for the president to provide more information and a schedule for reaching full Iraqi sovereignty. No bureaucratic euphemism can cleanse the air of the stench of defeatism.” Really, read it all.

As I started, “Perspiration is the best remedy for exasperation.” Start phoning and emailing your Senators and Congressmen NOW, to counter their pusillanimous poll watching with some spine from the other war front, at home in their districts.