By Donald Lambro
Thursday,September 6, 2007
Excerpts:WASHINGTON — Political cracks are appearing in the Democrats’ once-unified opposition to the war in Iraq, and a prominent independent pollster says it’s not “a slam dunk” issue for them anymore.One week before Gen. David Petraeus, the U.S. military commander in Iraq, gives his report to Congress, Republican leadership officials express new confidence that Americans are now far more willing to give President Bush’s troop surge more time to work.The mood shift is the result of reports from journalists, lawmakers and others returning from Iraq (including Democrats) who say progress is being made in terrorist-infested trouble spots and that levels of sectarian violence have fallen dramatically this summer.At the same time, the grassroots message coming back from Republican lawmakers returning from their August recess is that “we’re hearing less about Iraq” from voters, a senior House Republican leadership official told me.
From the beginning, the hope of the troop surge was not to say that it could fully stabilized Iraq and end the violence, something that isn’t going to happen anytime soon. Rather, it was to show that at least progress was being made, that in key regions Al Qaeda terrorists could be driven out as a result of new alliances between Sunnis leaders and U.S. and Iraqi military forces.
Several weeks of positive reports from Iraq have not only divided the Democrats but have thrown them on the defensive on an issue that has clearly lost some of its antiwar potency with voters.
Independent pollster John Zogby reported last week that Republicans had indeed made gains last month among voters, with a clear 54 percent majority now saying they believe the war can be won.
…..With progress being made on the ground in Iraq, and signs that Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is close to enacting political reforms this month, including the addition of more Sunnis to the government, there is more talk of preliminary troop withdrawals.
…Notably, Bush spoke not in terms of if but “when we begin to draw down troops from Iraq,” a message pointedly aimed at his Democratic critics, who may be seeing their strongest campaign issue slowly dissolving before their eyes. Indeed, troop withdrawals by next year are a foregone conclusion now, because tour-of-duty schedules will have reached their limit in 2008, requiring some level of downsizing. Then the question becomes how will the mission be readjusted with fewer forces.
The evolving answer to that question will be the continuing transfer of security responsibilities to Iraqi military forces, with U.S. troops shifting to a strategic backup and training mission for as long as it takes for the Iraqis to fully defend their country on their own.
Nothing like success to take the wind out of the sails of anti-war Dems and their constituents.
Modern Democrats are craven toadies who would rather wait until a turbaned thug comes knocking on their front door to impose Sharia Law before they’d even consider “offending” the “peaceful religion of Islam”. They cannot fathom exterminating an enemy, even after taking a direct hit on our own soil.
Just as their Bolshevist voter base, their perverted idea of “courage” is to speak out against killing Islamic cuthroats, who have no compunction about killing another 3000 Americans given the chance.
Everytime Murtha, Reid, Dean, Pelosi, Rangel, Kusinich, or Clark bloviates, you could swear Zawahiri has his hand up their ass like a sock puppet.
As we continue to mash the Islamofascist pigs into little bloody spots in the sand, I’ll enjoy the gloomy silence from the leftwing peanut gallery.