The Iraq Dilemma

Should I stay or should I go now?
If I go there will be trouble
An' if I stay it will be double
So come on and let me know
The Clash

Tom Curry wrote a good article about the Democrat's political strategy and the dilemma of Iraq. In the article, DNC executive committee member Judith Hope had this to say:

“I think Democrats have largely been backed into a corner on Iraq. While most of us believe we should never have gone in there in the first place, many of us believe that now that we’re there, we have no choice but to finish the job. It would be both immoral and dangerous to bail out of that part of the world, given what we know today.”

I think she's right, by the way. We can't just abandon Iraq to the mess we made there. The question is, how do we challange the GOP on this, one of their cornerstone issues? We know it's bad, they know it's bad. We both want to find a way to make it better. I don't think Democrats can achieve much by debating the fine details of our ongoing Iraq policy. We cannot make a compelling argument there.

That's why I think it is important to seek to expose the truth about how we got into Iraq. We need to show how the Bush administration and GOP leaders in Congress misled America. Realistically, we won't be able to impeach Bush, or otherwise hold him leagally accountable. We will, however, be able to punish them in the voting booth.

There is one person I work with who voted for Bush in 2000. He supported the war in Iraq, believing that Saddam posed a real threat. By 2004, though, he realized he'd been suckered, and cast his vote for Kerry. Unfortunately there weren't enough people like him whose minds were changed in 2004. However, I think a relentless pursuit of the truth will bring more of them around. 2006 is the next big referendum on Iraq, and we need to make sure people know the truth by then.