Congressional Dems Showing Shell Shock over Iraq

Friday, President Obama announced a timetable to withdraw troops from Iraq. Republicans, including John McCain, applauded the action. Democrats were bummed. Even as they get the deadline for which they've been chanting for six years, they can't control the knee-jerk reaction to oppose anything but a Vietnam style airlift out of Iraq.

The President acknowledged this deadline of August 31, 2010 is two months longer than the 16 months he promised during his campaign. Apparently, those two months are quite offensive to Congressional democrats. I think Obama did a pretty decent job of juggling his firm 16-month deadline and his promise to withdraw with advice of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Thank goodness the situation in Iraq has improved sufficiently to allow that balance, or at least close enough.

Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi also protested Obama's suggestion that he might leave as many as 50,000 troops until the end of 2011. From the moment Hussein's regime was overthrown, democrats adopted the popular stance to oppose anything but an imminent timetable for our last soldier to leave Iraq.

I guess It's fair. Bush was pretty slippery about giving clear expectations for how long it would take to rebuild a nation almost from scratch. So the dems felt justified it playing a political game of "Are we there yet?" that they can't stop even now.

We educated Americans should have taken our cues from history to anticipate how long it would take to stabilize Iraq. We still have troops in Japan and Germany – now it's because there's a strategic advantage for doing so, but there was never any illusion before this war that rebuilding a nation should be a quick and easy job, as we have painfully relearned. History going back to the British empire also tells us we would have achieved our current peaceful state in Iraq much faster if we had maintained surge levels of troops from the beginning.

I assume and pray that the number of troops Obama leaves to advise and provide security will have something to do with the needs in Iraq, the lessons of history, and the advice of the Joint Chiefs. Maybe Nancy Pelosi should look into it. I hope things work out well enough for President Obama to keep that promise to have all troops out in 2011. We'll see.