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Surrender Another Day
Iran wants a Tet. So do the Democrats. They both need it to accomplish their shared goal -- the United States out of Iraq, in the most chaotic and shameful way possible. By Jules Crittenden
The Democrats in Congress have relented in their great jihad against Bush’s war. They have dropped their insistence. They flinched. They handed George Bush a victory. George Bush won.
That’s gotta hurt.
There is a fig leaf. The White House apparently has agreed to a face-saving non-binding measure that expresses the sincere desire that the Iraqi government make progress. Only reasonable. Progress is good. Certainly, for this Congress to have insisted that anyone stick to a deadline for making substantive progress on anything would have been a little too precious, and Bush has spared them that humiliation. Never mind that business about legislators not taking vacations when there is pressing business at hand.
Despite their utter, unconditional capitulation, the Democrats insist this fight is not over. They live to surrender another day.
What is their strategy?
The plan was revealed recently by a blabbermouth rep who promptly stuck her foot in it. Rep. Lynn Woolsey (D-Calif.) a founding member of the House Out of Iraq Caucus, said she expects there will be even more pressure to withdraw troops in two months if events in Iraq continue on their current violent course.”In two months it might be really clear how bad it is,” Woolsey said.
As the Democrats now fall back, their assault utterly routed, it becomes clearer what their strategy will be. It will be a variation on a Russian scorched-earth strategy. The Democrats now desperately need George Bush’s surge and the efforts of American soldiers on the ground to fail in the long Iraqi summer. Only they don’t intend to personally torch anything. The Democrats expect others to do their dirty work for them.
Enter the Democrats’ strongest ally in the region: Iran. Next week, the U.S. and Iranian ambassadors to Iraq will be sitting down to discuss the stability and security of Iraq.
We don’t know what they will say to each other, what subtle message will be conveyed under the diplomatic niceties. Intelligence leaks have signalled with incredibly poor timing that the United States does not intend to take forceful action against Iran. This comes with the news that Iran has plans of its own. Britain’s Guardian newspaper, which recently laid out evidence of Iranian meddling in Basra, weighs in this week with a report that U.S. officials believe Iran is coordinating with al-Qaeda in Iraq, other Sunni insurgent groups, and Shiite militias for a big summer offensive. Not terribly hard to believe, as it would only be an escalation of what Iran has been suspected of doing for some time. Playing both sides against the middle.
In short, Iran’s goal this summer is to shed enough blood and create enough chaos in Iraq to undermine any confidence in the surge and tip the balance in a wavering Congress.
Iran wants a Tet. So do the Democrats.
They both need it to accomplish their shared goal — the United States out of Iraq, in the most chaotic and shameful way possible.
Tet, the all-out communist offensive of February 1968, is remembered as a military failure for the North Vietnamese that was ironically their greatest political victory. An Iranian-backed campaign this summer could be the same for both Iran and America’s surrender camp. A bloody excuse to pack it in and abandon Iraq to its fate.
Look for Tet’s bloody reprise this summer. American and Iraqi soldiers, as well as the Iraqi people, could pay a terrible price as it plays out. The American people and their leaders will be, indirectly, from the safety of home, tested in their resolve.
There is a parallel between Vietnam and Iraq, that another war is in danger of being politically lost at home, but history does not have to repeat itself.
Iran, just like the Democrats in Congress, will back down and skulk away if directly and forcefully challenged. The credible threat or the actual reduction of Iran’s military capacity to cause trouble in Iraq, and a similarly credible threat of increased economic pressure on Iran, up to and including a blockade, could have a beneficial effect on Iran’s behavior. Now could be the time for diplomacy, though not necessarily in the way it was envisioned by the Iraq Study Group and Democrats in Congress. Now could be the time to test the willingness of France’s new tougher, pro-American government, Britain’s incoming Prime Minister Gordon Brown and other allies, as well as the sincerity of Arab nations that want to avoid open warfare and Iranian domination.
But with or without their help, it falls to the Bush administration in this critical time to refuse to seize defeat from the jaws of the Democrats’ surrender.
Jules Crittenden is an editor and columnist for the Boston Herald.
Crittenden’s web page is at Forward Movement.
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15 Comments
1. william jonas:Sounds like the approach of a crisis that will ultimately decide the issue once and for all.
May 24, 2007 - 5:53 am 2. Jack Okie:There are so many aspects the public has no knowledge of but we can see the outline of a plan to deal with Iran.
As the summer progresses we will see challenges to the Naval forces in the Gulf and we can expect kidnapping attempts everywhere. We have slowly moved the situation into one favorable to our forces. It should be very interesting.
Yesterday’s unannounced sortie of a U.S. carrier group into the Straits of Hormuz is likely in aid of the diplomacy to which you refer.
May 24, 2007 - 10:53 am 3. fox3:It might be remembered that Tet was a unmitigated disaster for the NVA / VC.
The only way that was a bad thing was for the friends of the lamestream media and their dimocratic overlords.
The dims don’t want a Tet they want a lamstream media’s version of it which had nothing to do with reality on the battlefield.
May 24, 2007 - 2:04 pm 4. BBK:As the Democrats now fall back, their assault utterly routed, it becomes clearer what their strategy will be.
Yes. They’ll just wait until Bush’s feeble plans once again fail, like they have over and over again. You can set your watch by it.
Iran wants a Tet. So do the Democrats.
Are you crazy? Iran wants the status quo! While we remain bogged down in Iraq, they can move forward with their nuclear plans unimpeded. Once we’ve re-gathered our strength, they’ll have to be much more careful.
The Dems want what 2/3 of the country wants. They want us out so this policing of a civil war can stop sucking the country dry on a fool’s errand.
May 24, 2007 - 3:01 pm 5. buck smith:Let’s modify our ROE for this little offensive and start summarily executing per the Geneva convention, any foreign insurgent captured who is not in a distinguishable uniform.
May 24, 2007 - 3:09 pm 6. fred edwards:They want another Tet? Why keep promoting the MSM lie that the Tet offensive was a defeat for the US.The North Vietmese Army was smashed! Of course our MSM will be happy to continue lying. Boy doy they Hate the USA!!
May 24, 2007 - 3:35 pm 7. Ardeshir Dolat:It is odd that the democrats bang on about withdrawing from Iraq and suddenly more American solders get killed. They are lucky don carleone was only a fictional character.
May 24, 2007 - 3:44 pm 8. Lightwave:It’s not just Iran and the Dems, Jules. It’s the media too. How many stories have we seen in the last week, the latest being Steve Clemons’ paranoid delusions that Cheney is somehow leading a secret coup to bomb Iran behind the President’s back?
No, the MSM…particularly the non-Fox MSM, want a Tet too, if only for ratings. They’re pulling out all the stops to provoke the Mullahs.
Not that they need much help, but hey, emboldening the enemy is always so helpful if you need dead GIs for the front page.
May 24, 2007 - 4:06 pm 9. batboy:It would be great to read postings and comments that stick to thoughtful commentary than name-calling and bad puns. As a life-long, card-carrying Republican and Vietnam vet (two tours), and currently working for a DC firm, I have to say we have been led down this road in a shoddy, poorly-planned manner. It really could have been better planned, and performed more efficiently. It is a shame we are in such a mess! I honestly think it did not have to be this way, and I do put the blame squarely on this administration for relying more on politics and “spin” than preparation and thoroughness.
May 24, 2007 - 4:13 pm 10. jt harrold:While you ridicule clemons theory, you salivate over the possibility of our naval group being attacked by iran to allow the US to respond.. that is exactly the scenario that clemons laid out..
as someone with a son who has fought in afghanistan and is now scheduled to deploy to Iraq, I can only hope you are willing to send your own flesh and blood to die for this folly.. and you think I am rooting for a bloody summer in Iraq? not with my son and all the sons and daughters of americans over there.. Bush today talked of a bloody summer in Iraq.. is he rooting for a Tet? He echoed what woolsey said.
May 24, 2007 - 7:08 pm 11. Sam Hall:I agree that they want another Tet, but this time things are different.
May 25, 2007 - 5:23 am 12. wayne:It was Walter Cronkite on CBS that lied about Tet and set the stage for our defeat.When his clone, Dan Rather, tried to lie about Bush’s National Guard service, blogs exposed him. The MSM doesn’t have the control they did during Tet.
I am praying for mushroom clouds over Iran before Fall.
May 25, 2007 - 10:19 am 13. Rachel:No one is thinking here, just whining. Do you really think that we will be free of the Middle East if we leave Iraq? You are truly delusional. I have no faith in the Dems or Reps because they think once they get one of their own in charge the war will suddenly stop and peace will reign, or that if we are out of Iraq we will never have to deal with it again.
May 26, 2007 - 5:38 am 14. PoliticalRealityOnline:This is *war* folks. This is no defense of the administration, but war is bloody and full of errors. And if we cannot handle *this* we will not be able to handle bigger and worse threats down the road. I would not be saying this if I did not live a country (US) that survived many bloodier battles than this.
Great article. Unfortunately GWB appears poised to cave to his daddy’s boy Jim Baker on Iraq and snatch defeat from the jaws of victory and betray the rest of his loyal supporters and our nation to destruction in futile quest to preserve his legacy.
The “Psycho” liberal crowd will finally get to celebrate their craven victory over GWB right up until Iran gets the bomb and overruns the Middle East oilfields and shatters the financial well being of almost every American by cutting off our access to Middle East oil.
The most amazing part is that the deranged lefties will never understand what they did even when they have to park their SUVs and live under an elevated freeway. The problem is that these lunatics are going wreck America for the rest of us.
If you believe this is an exageration, check out:
“America’s Very Real Catastrophe Scenario” at
http://www.politicalrealityonline.com/catastrophe.html
May 26, 2007 - 12:14 pm 15. Jules Crittenden » Boat Show:[...] Iran Wants A Tet [...]
Apr 30, 2008 - 11:50 am