Rep. Jane Harman, D-Calif., offered the most reasoned argument (and that is faint praise) for this switcheroo, claiming that "Two major failures led us to war . . . First was a massive intelligence failure in assessing Saddam's WMD capability. The second -- equally grave -- was the politicization of intelligence by the President . . ." No, it is the Democrats who have politicized the issue of intelligence. During the Clinton administration and during the long run-up to the Iraq War, every leading Democrat in the nation, including Bill Clinton, Al Gore, John Kerry, Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, Tom Daschle and Ted Kennedy, endorsed the view that Saddam was building WMDs. (For direct quotes see Snopes.com.) Only after the Iraq War dragged on did liberals begin to suggest that George Bush had invented the entire threat.
The Harmans and Murthas and Kerrys are now urging retreat -- which they perfume with the term "redeployment." But it fools only themselves. Certainly the enemy would be in no doubt about what withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq now would signify. Al Qaeda would claim victory (and they'd be right). Iran would accelerate its violence in pursuit of a Shiite Islamic Iraq subservient to Tehran and might well succeed. Muslim moderates from Egypt to Lebanon to Jordan to Pakistan to Afghanistan would be routed. Islamists in countries friendly to the United States, like Turkey and Indonesia, as well as Islamists in nastier corners, would feel a rush unlike anything they've experienced since the USSR left Afghanistan. It would be gasoline on a fire.
John Kerry, in his Senate floor speech, predicted that an American withdrawal would improve our reputation among the Europeans. Liberals worry a great deal about what the French think of us. They ought to spare some worry about what the Islamists think -- because as brutal as they are today, they will be even more ferocious when they smell blood in the water.