DID SOMEONE designate November as Repudiate-Your-Iraq-War-Vote Month? Or maybe just Quagmire Month, or Let's-Get-the-Hell-Out-of-There Month?
John Kerry kicked off the trend at the end of October in a speech at Georgetown University. "Knowing what we know now," he declared, "I would not have gone to war in Iraq." John Edwards issued a similar \o7mea culpa \f7 recently: "I was wrong.... It was a mistake to vote for this war." On Wednesday, Bill Clinton weighed in: "It was a big mistake."
Uh-huh. I guess they noticed that voters think so too. According to a CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll conducted last weekend, most Americans similarly regret the whole darn thing: 63% of respondents said they disapprove of President Bush's handing of the Iraq war; 60% declared that it was "not worth going to war," and 52% wanted the U.S. to withdraw "now" or "within 12 months."
Accordingly, Senate Democrats introduced a measure this week demanding that the White House create a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq. This was defeated in a largely party-line vote, but the Senate ultimately approved -- by a vote of 98 to 0 -- an in-your-face demand that the administration "explain to Congress and the American people its strategy" for doing whatever it is that we're doing in Iraq.
Whee! Looks like it's finally time for all responsible politicians -- or at least presidential hopefuls -- to promise that we'll withdraw from Iraq ASAP!
Somehow, though, I can't entirely share the festive mood that Let's-Get-the-Hell-Out-of-There Month seems to have induced in many of my friends.
It's not that I don't think we should come up with an exit plan, pronto. I do. As it now stands, we're almost certainly doing as much harm as good in Iraq. At least, that seems to be what the Iraqis think, and they ought to know. In an August poll, a whopping 82% of Iraqis declared themselves "strongly opposed" to the presence of U.S.-led coalition troops, and 67% said they feel "less secure" as a result of the occupation.
Once the justification for war shifted away from WMD, the only rationale for staying on is if we really are "bringing peace, stability and democracy to Iraq," as the White House insists. With our presence seemingly increasing instability, not decreasing it, and with most Iraqis as eager as Cindy Sheehan to see U.S. troops withdraw, it's hard to come up with good reasons for staying.
