So the Dems won; what now?

The views I'd read over here prior to the mid-term elections suggested that regardless of the outcome, Asian countries expected a more cooperative Washington. Even Republicans were less brazenly unilateral in their discussions with nations such as Indonesia--who they now are hoping will be a moderating voice in Iran's ear and other Muslim nations. To this end, President Bush will be visiting at the end of this month, as he tours Southeast Asia. That view was expressed by government officials. The average person, assuming they give two hoots about the elections, may well expect a major policy reversal, and I think they will be disappointed. The folly of the Iraqi invasion is that it left America only a bread crumb trail with which to find its way out, and now the buzzards have picked up the crumbs. What can be done? There is no easy way out of Iraq. Withdrawel without an improvement in conditions will, as the GOP stresses, be seen as a sign of weakness. Prolonged stay will reinforce notions of an America obsessed with dominating the Middle East, and intent on occupying Muslim lands. If we continue on without being able to control the situation--this, too, will highlight the limitations of American power and "embolden" the enemy. When Colin Powel instructed the President that if he broke Iraq, he would have to pay for it, he was right on the money.

If we look back to the 2004 elections when the GOP insisted that the argument for starting the war in the first place was closed to discussion, I wonder how the media and the Dems could agree. The decision to begin this war was ideological and the outcome has exposed the limitations of that ideology. In my view, the Dems should have insisted and keep insisting on making the shortcomings of this ethos the defining characteristic of the American Right. The results have not been merely a matter of poor execution and planning, but much moreso a matter of misguided faith. We should stress this not merely because we believe it to be true, but as a politcal strategem. The GOP set out to tarnish the legacies of the most recent Dem presidents (not that these presidents were faultless)relentlessly, not to mention championing the Reagan mythology. The decision to invade Iraq under false and shifting pretenses at great American expense without so much as a snowball's chance in Cuba of succeeding should define the modern Republican party. The left needs to stick to this point.

What can the left do to remedy the situation? I don't know that they can do, or have the will to do, much of anything new. The Dems have kept so close to GOP on matters of "national security" that it's doubtful there is any chance of a bold new strategy. Harry Reid's remark that we traded in a Iraq run by a dictator for chaos and that neither is acceptable is quite close to the truth. What he doesn't mention is that the chaos was predictable.