Iraq: The Dem challenge
Posted: Monday, September 17, 2007 9:14 AM by Domenico Montanaro
Filed Under:
Democrats, Security
Frank Rich wrote over the weekend, "It's also past time for the Democratic presidential candidates to stop getting bogged down in bickering about who has the faster timeline for withdrawal or the more enforceable deadline. Every one of these plans is academic anyway as long as Mr. Bush has a veto pen. The security of America is more important -- dare one say it? -- than trying to outpander one another in Iowa and New Hampshire."
Meanwhile, Tom Friedman called Bush's speech a tacit resignation. "While Mr. Bush’s tacit resignation last week greatly increases the odds of a Democratic victory in 2008, there are several wild cards that could change things: a miraculous turnaround in Iraq (unlikely, but you can always hope), a terrorist attack in America, a coup in Pakistan that puts loose nukes in the hands of Islamist radicals, or a recession induced by the meltdown in the U.S. mortgage market, which forces a stark choice between bailing out Baghdad or Chicago… Democratic candidates have been talking about health care and other important issues, but the overriding foreign policy message that still comes across from them to many Americans, argues Mr. Rothkopf, is that Democrats are simply ‘anti-Bush, antiwar and antitrade.’ Be careful: despite the mess Mr. Bush has made in the world, or maybe because of it, Americans will not hand the keys to a Democrat who does not convey a ‘gut’ credibility on national security.”
