The Dems Don’t Get Iraq, #324

The Congressional Democrats are in a huff over the fact that Iraq’s prime minister Nuri al-Maliki has attacked “Israeli aggression” and refused to condemn Hizballah over the current conflagration in Lebanon. How can the U.S. be listening to such a man, they demand. He doesn’t support the U.S. position or goals in the Middle East…

Uh, will someone please tell the Democratic leadership that, actually, no representative Arab leaders support U.S. goals in the Middle East. And Maliki is democratically elected, after all. Sure the Saudis have criticized Hizballah for setting things off, but when last did they face their electorate? Maliki’s government, by the way, the last-best hope of the U.S. being able to extricate itself from the quagmire (although that’s looking pretty remote — the civil war is spinning out of control, and Maliki was in Washington to ask for more U.S. troops) is dominated by parties, his own included, that could legitimately be termed ideological soul mates of Hizballah. That’s democracy for you.

Then again, I’ve long since given up waiting for the Democrats to say anything sensible about Iraq: The last time they were in a huff about Maliki it was because his government wants to offer an amnesty to insurgents who’ve killed Americans (although not to those who’ve waged terror attacks against Iraqi civilians). Well, how else do these noble Democratic defenders of America’s honor plan to fulfill their promise to get out of Iraq? Haven’t they noticed that the insurgency has actually grown in the three years of the occupation? Do they think, contra conventional wisdom even in the U.S. mission in Baghdad , that it can be defeated militarily? Or are we to deduce from these comments, and their dog and pony show over Maliki and Hizballah, that they’re not really serious about anything other than electioneering on the basis of voter ignorance?