Every once in awhile, you’ve almost gotta feel sorry for Nancy Pelosi. She rode to power on…an insistant anti-war movement (Admit it- you were thinking of something with a handle and some bristles, weren’t you?) that thought she cared about winning in Iraq. It isn’t that Ms. Pelosi isn’t anti-war. It’s that her biggest goal was to attain the highest political rank possible. That’s why she’s in a pickle. Here’s how the Washington Times editorialist describes Ms. Pelosi’s dilemma:

These are difficult days for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other politicians who have staked their political futures on an American defeat in Iraq. In the past 10 days alone, the mainstream media has reported the new reality: that the changes in military strategy instituted by Gen. David Petraeus are resulting in major improvements in the security situation there.

For example, the Associated Press reported: “Twilight brings traffic jams to the main shopping district of this once-affluent corner of Baghdad, and hundreds of people stroll past well-stocked vegetable stands, bakeries and butcher shops. To many in Amariyah, it seems little short of a miracle.” According to The Washington Post:
“The number of attacks against U.S. soldiers has fallen to levels not seen since before the February 2006 bombing of a Shi’ite shrine in Samarra that touched off waves of sectarian killing…The death toll for American troops in October fell to 39, the lowest level since March 2006.” And on Thursday, the New York Times noted: “American forces have routed Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, the Iraqi militant network, from every neighborhood in Baghdad, a top American general said today, allowing American troops involved in the ’surge’ to depart as planned.”

Responding to the good news, Mrs. Pelosi has unveiled her newest legislative strategy to damage the war effort: House Democrats this week will try to enact a bill calling for immediately beginning to withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq, with a goal of completing the pullout in one year (in other words, announcing a date to surrender Iraq to the very jihadists that coalition forces are defeating on the battlefield right now.) The surrender language will be attached to a four-month, $50 billion funding package for the war in Iraq, roughly one quarter of the funding requested by President Bush. The president, in all likelihood, will be forced to veto this irresponsible bill, which will once again jeopardize funding for the troops.

The contrast could hardly be any more striking: American soldiers perform heroically and successfully, risking their lives on the battlefield in Iraq. Mrs. Pelosi and the Democratic leadership, by contrast, look for new ways to advertise American weakness to the enemy, in effect, to tell al Qaeda in Mesopotamia that if it can hold out against U.S. forces for another year, “progressive” politicians in Washington will deliver the votes to ensure that Iraq becomes a jihadist colony.

She knows that she can’t argue against the anti-war crowd because they’re prolific fundraisers, which is important because she wants to stay Speaker. That means Ms. Pelosi, and Sen. Reid for that matter, are betwixt and between. Put a little differently, she’s between Iraq and a hard place.

This is a hell of Ms. Pelosi’s making. If Ms. Pelosi wasn’t a power-hungry, unprincipled politician, she’d tell the Nutroots to take a hike. If Democrats did that, they’d regain the Lieberman Democrats.

At the day’s end, we need principled politicians who care about our nation’s security more than they care about the next election. That won’t happen until Speaker Pelosi returns to being Minority Leader Pelosi. That won’t happen until Democrats reject the anti-war nutters.

That’s the only way to solve our dilemma.

Technorati Tags: Iraq War, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Nutroots, Fundraising, Elections, Military, Baghdad, Sectarian Violence, Samarra, Slow Bleed, Victory Caucus, National Security

Cross-posted at LetFreedomRingBlog

1. Cleaning up Pelosi’s Mess

   I wrote recently about what I consider to be an ill-advised move by Nancy Pelosi and others to pass a resolution condemning Turkey for the 1915 Armenian Genocide (a term that Turkey disputes.) The almost immediate result was a diplomatic crisis between the US and Turkey, as well as the threat of Turkey to invade the Kurdish part of Iraq in pursuit of fighters of the Kurdish Workers Party (PKK), a Marxist organization that has carried out violent attacks across the Turkish-Iraqi border. Since the Kurdish part of Iraq is aligned with the US, and represents the most successful region of post-Saddam Iraq, the US has every reason to head off a Turkish invasion that would seriously destabilize that region.

   In response, the Bush Adminstration has been laboring very hard recently to patch up relations with Turkey, a critical ally. Now the Administration has worked out an agreement with Turkish President Erdogan by which the US has labeled the PKK “an enemy of Turkey, a free Iraq and the US.” In addition, Bush has promised to furnish the Turks with actionable intelligence on the PKK. Meanwhile, the Kurdish regional government has arranged for the release of 8 Turkish soldiers who had been taken prisoner by the PKK. It also appears that the Kurds will turn a blind eye to “hot pursuit” incursions across the border by Turkish troops.

   How well these agreements hold up remains to be seen. However, at this point, a regional crisis has been averted, at least temporarily. Credit should go to the Bush Adminstration for this piece of diplomatic work. At the same time, Congress, namely Pelosi and others who were pushing the Armenian resolution, should be embarrassed for causing a diplomatic incident with an important ally and exacerbating problems in Iraq vis-a-vis Turkey.

   As I said before, I mean no disrespect to the Armenian cause of publicizing what happened in 1915. However, at the moment, there are more important considerations pertaining to our relationship with Turkey and the situation in that region. Pelosi et al acted in an irresponsible manner and created a crisis that Bush had to clean up.

   gary fouse
   fousesquawk

   Comment by fouse, gary c — November 12, 2007 @ 9:35 pm

2. I hope the Dems choke on this. The Republican party needs to recruit Iraq vets and have them run against as many Dems as they can. The Vets need to callout these scum bags for the traitors they are at every chance they get.

   Comment by Southdakotaboy — November 13, 2007 @ 12:44 pm