Kevin Drum is worried about whether the Democrats get the blame if Democrats push too hard to withdraw from Iraq, get their wish, and chaos in Iraq ensues:
Democrats will push for withdrawal, eventually they'll get their way, and the country will blame them for the resulting chaos and defeat. Dems will argue that it would have happened anyway, but the public won't buy it. The Republican party, which should get the blame, will get off scot free.The American public was as baffled by the failure to win in Vietnam as any pundit. Their final take was something like, 'well, if we weren't going to do what was necessary to win (tantamount to genocide), we shouldn't have gotten involved.'
It would be reasonably easy to 'win' in Iraq: make it our ONLY military committment and flood it with troops and keep them there indefinitely. Bush won't do that: no one wants to do that. AMERICA won't do what is necessary to win. So, we probably shouldn't have gotten involved at all, and the sooner we cut our losses, the better.
The blame for an Iraqi civil war and a new dictatorship will fall on Bush, not on Democrats, whether the withdrawal comes before or after Bush leaves office. After all, hardly anyone blamed Ford or Carter for the Cambodian genocide. Especially after Congress tied Ford's hands in April 1975, it was understood by all that we were no longer going to be involved there, period. Such blame as there was fell on Nixon, because it was he who needlessly escalated the war there in 1971. Same here. Bush needlessly invaded Iraq in 2003: he gets the blame.
Bush will get credit for good intentions, but blame for bad execution. The entire venture has a Republican brand on it, and even if genocide occurs, under either a new Democratic administration, or a Republican administration with a Democratic Congress, responsibility can be laid fairly and squarely on the Republicans. New and unpleasant political realities in Iraq can also be blamed on ungrateful Iraqis. Democrats skate no matter what happens.
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