Democrats Worry About Positive Report by Petraeus  
By Robert Maynard

It is a sad day in America when the possibility of a positive report on the progress of our troops in a battle that is central to the War on Terrorism is greeted by a leader of one of our major political parties with concern over whether such a report might split his party. Conservative political commentators like radio host Rush Limbaugh have long claimed that good news for America is bad news for the Democrats because they have positioned themselves politically so as to benefit from our defeat. Now this observation has been validated by one of the Party’s own leaders.

In a Monday, July 30th Washington Post article entitled "Clyburn: Positive Report by Petraeus Could Split House Democrats on War", House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-SC) said that a strongly positive report on progress in Iraq by Army Gen. David Petraeus likely would split Democrats in the House and impede his party's efforts to press for a timetable to end the war.

The Democratic leadership has pinned their hopes for political victory in 2008 on Iraq being viewed as a failure and have promised their left-wing base that they would impose a timetable for pulling out of Iraq. A positive report by Petraeus complicates matters for them, as does the recent trend in outlets like the New York Times to finally report the positive side of what is happening in Iraq.

I find it disgusting that a life and death matter such as the battle in Iraq is viewed by a major Democratic leader primarily in terms of how it will play out politically for his party. The stakes in Iraq are too high to be playing politics with the success or failure there.

Last month the National Intelligence Council released their latest "National Intelligence Estimate". While the report acknowledged that our efforts have constrained the ability of al Qaeda to attack our homeland and have caused terrorists groups to perceive such an attack to be harder than on 9/11, it also claimed that al Qaeda is in the process of planning another attack on our homeland. This time they are attempting to acquire nuclear weapons for the attack. The report does mention that al Qaeda is rebuilding its base in the Pakistan Federally Administered Tribal Areas, but it also points out that it intends to leverage the capabilities of al Qaeda in Iraq to launch an attack on the U.S. homeland. The Iraqi affiliate is said to be its most visible and capable and is the only one that has expressed an interest in attacking the U.S. homeland.

As the report clearly points out, the Iraqi branch of al Qaeda is a key to the group’s plans to strike our homeland again. Since General Petraeus’ "surge" plan was put into practice, al Qaeda has been on the run in Iraq and is on the verge of defeat. Such a defeat would deal a serious blow to any plans by al Qaeda for attacks on our homeland. Given this, WHY ON EARTH WOULD WE WANT TO FORCE OUR TROOPS TO WITHDRAW BEFORE VICTORY IS ASSURED?? More to the point, why would anyone look on a positive report of our progress in Iraq as a problem?

As citizens, we need to put our elected officials on notice that we will not tolerate their using serious issues of national security as political weapons. We also need to pay more attention to what is at stake in Iraq so that we can be in a better position to evaluate the political positions of our elected leaders. This is not a Democrat vs. Republican political battle, but a critical matter of national security that should be of concern to ALL Americans. As Vermonters, we should put some pressure on our Congressional delegation to Washington D.C. to condemn this partisan maneuvering over such an important issue.

This particular case is one of a Democratic Party leader putting political gain over national security, but the Democrats are not the only ones guilty of this. There are a number of Republicans who are getting cold feet over Iraq because of the perceived unpopularity of the conflict. It is one thing to offer a legitimate criticism of what is going on over there, but quite another to turn the whole thing into a political football.

A number of people, from both parties, had been critical of how the battle was going after the initial success of toppling Saddam’s regime. There was a strong sense that a change in approach was needed. After the 2006 elections General Petraeus, who is considered an expert in counter-insurgency, was selected to be the new military commander in Iraq and was charged in mapping out a new plan. In a hearing before the U.S. Senate, he presented his plan and was approved 95 – 0 without a dissenting vote. Here we have a military leader who was appointed by a Republican President and unanimously approved by both Republicans and Democrats in the Senate. In short, he had a bipartisan rubber stamp to enact his plan for victory. It has only been recently that all of the troops called for under that plan have arrived, and yet there has already been marked progress in Iraq. With his plan just beginning to take efect, some politicians are already trying to pull the rug out from under his feet. We owe it to him and to ourselves, for the sake of our own security, to give him a chance to succeed. Let us not allow our political leaders to put politics ahead of security.

Robert Maynard is the Editor of the True North website