Dems May Unite on Plan to Pull Troops

Apparently, the Democrat party is gelling around the idea that strategic redeployment is a double-plus good strategy for Iraq. To translate from their window-dressing newspeak, the accurate phrasing they’re looking for is, in a word, retreat.

After months of trying unsuccessfully to develop a common message on the war in Iraq, Democratic Party leaders are beginning to coalesce around a broad plan to begin a quick withdrawal of US troops and install them elsewhere in the region, where they could respond to emergencies in Iraq and help fight terrorism in other countries.

The concept, dubbed ”strategic redeployment,” is outlined in a slim, nine-page report coauthored by a former Reagan administration assistant Defense secretary, Lawrence J. Korb, in the fall. It sets a goal of a phased troop withdrawal that would take nearly all US troops out of Iraq by the end of 2007, although many Democrats disagree on whether troop draw-downs should be tied to a timeline.

Howard Dean, Democratic National Committee chairman, has endorsed Korb’s paper and begun mentioning it in meetings with local Democratic groups. In addition, the study’s concepts have been touted by the senator assigned to bring Democrats together on Iraq — Jack Reed of Rhode Island — and the report has been circulated among all senators by Senator Dianne Feinstein, an influential moderate Democrat from California.

The party remains divided on some points, including how much detail to include in a party-produced document, fearful of giving too much fodder for attacks by Republicans.

The concern for campaign accusations of defeatism and retreat are well placed, as those are the actual features of the plan.

”We’re not going to cut and run — that’s just Republican propaganda,” Dean said in a speech Feb. 10 in Boston. ”But we are going to redeploy our troops so they don’t have targets on their backs, and they’re not breaking down doors and putting themselves in the line of fire all the time. . . . It’s a sensible plan. It’s a thoughtful plan. I think Democrats can coalesce around it.”

Reed, an Army veteran and former paratrooper who has been charged with developing a party strategy on the war, said the plan is attractive to many Democrats because it rejects what he calls the ”false dichotomy” suggested by President Bush: that the only options in Iraq are ”stay the course” or ”cut and run.”

”It’s important to note that it’s not withdrawal — it’s redeployment,” Reed said. ”We need to pursue a strategy that is going to accomplish the reasonable objectives, and allow us to have strategic flexibility. Not only is it a message, but it’s a method to improve the security there and around the globe.”

Withdrawal is redeployment. Black is white. Up is down. Running away from hardship is strengthening security. Granted, there are times the latter may be true; however, this is not one of those times, as radical Islamists will immediately declare it a victory so great that the Somalia tail-tucking will pale in comparison.

Under Korb’s outline, all reservists and National Guard members would come home this year. Most of the other troops would be redeployed to other key areas — Afghanistan, Southeast Asia, and the Horn of Africa — with large, quick-strike forces placed in Kuwait, where they could respond to crises in neighboring Iraq.

Yes, let’s immediately declare that our military’s reserve components, long held as a key portion for our national security plans, are now to be kept safely under glass — only break in the event of a hurricane.

Korb said in an interview that setting dates for troop withdrawal would send a message to the Iraqi people that the United States does not intend to set up permanent military bases in Iraq. Starting the redeployment quickly will ensure that the Army does not wear out before the insurgents do, he said.

Trust me, the message would also be sent to our Islamist enemies — bleed us and we will flee, and we’ll set a date that you merely have to hold out to that you can enter into your Defeat-America project plan.

But some strategists say the goal of a near-total withdrawal within two years is overly optimistic. US troops that are a plane ride away won’t be an effective deterrent, and Iraqi security forces appear unlikely to be able to handle the violence on their own in the near future, said Michael O’Hanlon, a centrist defense specialist who is a lecturer at Princeton University.

”You’re demanding that the political system produces a miracle,” O’Hanlon said. ”Any plan that envisions complete American withdrawal in such a period of time is still a prescription for strategic defeat.”

Quite freakin’ right.

In November, Representative John P. Murtha, a Pennsylvania Democrat, shook much of Washington with his call for an immediate withdrawal of troops, and his estimate that all troops could be out of Iraq within six months. The generally hawkish Vietnam veteran also called for quick strike forces to remain close to Iraq — similar to the Korb plan — but that was largely overlooked in the barrage from Republicans.

White House spokesman Scott McClellan said the Murtha plan amounted to ”surrender to the terrorists.”

Yes, the Democrats seem to be on the verge of rallying around an only-slightly modified version of the Murtha plan for retreat, a plan that lacks substance in the areas of actually maintaining an abililty to respond quickly enough to in-region actions and a threshold at which such re-engagement would be justified. In short, the plan offers the Iraqi government the same hollow promise we gave the South Vietnamese in 1973: we’ll be there if needed. The only problem is the Islamist terrorrists, the Iraqi people and the whole world know that we failed on that earlier promise.

Hat tip to Charlie Munn of the Officers’ Club, who points out some key contradictions in the so-called strategy in the following:

Next, what other key areas do we need 130,000+/- troops deployed to? (I would answer “Iran”) Afghanistan is being effectively handled by SF and light units, putting power in the hands of the locals and backing them up with a small US footprint. Does this new strategy suggest that we’ve been bungling OEF, and we need to put mech and armor units on the ground? Same with the Horn of Africa- if our footprint is the problem in Iraq, why is it the solution in other places?

Further, the logic for this “strategic re-deployment” seems to be that US forces are causing terrorist attacks simply by being there (echoes of Osama). Following that logic, anywhere we deploy we will be attacked, so we might as well not do any military operations anywhere, ever. Also, if the threat is currently in Iraq, and we “strategically re-deploy” to where the threat is not, it is rather easy to label this strategy as a “cut and run.”

Yes, it does seem to be a strategy of being where we ain’t targets. Well, it doesn’t take much to figure the counter-strategy for the radical Islamist bastards — hit the American military wherever they are and watch them flee all they can flee.

Damn, but I do hope the American public sees this for the defeatist retreat that it is.