Now That We're Winning, Let's Leave?

Most observers in the realm of world politics say that the so-called 'troop surge' in Iraq is working. Some of the very pundits whose warnings were used by the Democrats to call for an immediate withdrawal from Iraq are now saying that winning the war is entirely within reach.

Even many Congressional Democrats are beginning to say the very same thing.

The Democratic leadership, however, says that our recent successes in Iraq are cause for immediate withdrawal. This view is clearly not shared by many of the rank-and-file Democrats in the Congress, however.

So, what, exactly, is happening with the Democratic leadership?

One, Party leaders are definitely beholden to extremists who make up the core of the Party faithful. From Cindy Sheehan to Michael Moore, from Sean Penn to Harry Belafonte, from George Soros to Barbra Streisand, Democratic Party activists demand an immediate withdrawal from Iraq no matter what.

Two, the Democrats have staked out the War in Iraq as the single issue with which to win the White House in 2008. Thus, whether they like it or not, and whether they admit it or not, the Democrats have a vested political interest in our losing the War.

The fact that we are now winning does not figure into the 2008 campaign playbook, which assumed that Iraq would continue to drag Mr. Bush and the Republicans further down into the abyss, leaving a golden opportunity for the Democrats to seize the supposed failures of the War as a reason to put them in the White House.

Thus, for the U.S. to turn things around and actually begin to bring a volatile situation under control in Iraq would be bad political news for the Democrats.

And whether the Dems like it or not, this is precisely the predicament in which the Party and its candidates find themselves, i.e., being the Party that wins if America loses.

Three, without fail each member of the Democratic leadership is on record utilizing the most vitriolic rhetoric one can muster to condemn the War, though most of them voted for it, and to lambast the Republicans who supposedly 'got us into this mess,' which once again could not have happened without the help and support of Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, Joe Biden, Chris Dodd, John Kerry, Harry Reid, and Ted Kennedy in 2002.

Each of the Senators mentioned above support withdrawal in spite of the turn-around produced by the troop-surge. Add to that members of the House, such as John Conyers, Nancy Pelosi, and John Murtha, and it is clear that the Party leadership is obviously paying no attention to the members of the Democratic rank-and-file nor their chosen pundits who once supported withdrawal but who now say the surge is working.

The attitude of the Democratic leadership seems to be that of, 'Now that we are winning, let's leave.' No real need to stay until the job is done, right?

Only if you have a vested interest in making sure that we do not finish the job. After all, the 2008 elections draw near.