For months, national news outlets have gone to great lengths to point out that not all Dems agree on how best to deal with the war in Iraq. I’ve never fully understood the criticism — not only do top Republicans disagree on Iraq, but Dem unanimity seems unnecessary — but party leaders have responded by hoping to get at least most of the party on the same page before the 2006 elections.<\/p>\n
Will it work? Roll Call quoted<\/a> a senior congressional Dem saying, “There’s a recognition, pragmatically, that [a unified stand on Iraq] ain’t there, it hasn’t been there, and isn’t going to be there.” But according to the Boston Globe’s Rick Klein<\/a>, a unified approach may be a little closer than expected.<\/p>\n After months of trying unsuccessfully to develop a common message on the war in Iraq, Democratic Party leaders are beginning to coalesce around a broad plan to begin a quick withdrawal of US troops and install them elsewhere in the region, where they could respond to emergencies in Iraq and help fight terrorism in other countries.<\/p>\n The concept, dubbed “strategic redeployment,” is outlined in a slim, nine-page report coauthored by a former Reagan administration assistant Defense secretary, Lawrence J. Korb, in the fall. It sets a goal of a phased troop withdrawal that would take nearly all US troops out of Iraq by the end of 2007, although many Democrats disagree on whether troop draw-downs should be tied to a timeline.<\/p>\n Howard Dean, Democratic National Committee chairman, has endorsed Korb’s paper and begun mentioning it in meetings with local Democratic groups. In addition, the study’s concepts have been touted by the senator assigned to bring Democrats together on Iraq — Jack Reed of Rhode Island — and the report has been circulated among all senators by Senator Dianne Feinstein, an influential moderate Democrat from California.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Korb’s report is available online<\/a> (.pdf) and it’s certainly worth reading. And if Dems rally behind this approach, I think it’s an all-around winner: militarily and politically.<\/p>\n Reed, an Army veteran and former paratrooper who has been charged with developing a party strategy on the war, said the plan is attractive to many Democrats because it rejects what he calls the “false dichotomy” suggested by President Bush: that the only options in Iraq are “stay the course” or “cut and run.”<\/p>\n “It’s important to note that it’s not withdrawal — it’s redeployment,” Reed said. “We need to pursue a strategy that is going to accomplish the reasonable objectives, and allow us to have strategic flexibility. Not only is it a message, but it’s a method to improve the security there and around the globe.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n If all of this sounds kind of familiar, there’s a good reason. Korb and Katulis begin with the same premises that Murtha does: that the U.S. military presence in Iraq is inflaming the insurgency, uniting nationalists with Islamo-fundamentalists, and bolstering America’s terrorist enemies worldwide; that the Iraqi government is using U.S. troops as a crutch; that maintaining 140,000 troops for another year will destroy the U.S. Army; and that, therefore, on several grounds, it is best for all that we get out.<\/p>\n They call for a phased, two-year plan, drawing the troops down to 80,000 by the end of next year and dispensing with most of the rest by the end of 2007. However, they don’t call for a total withdrawal. By their plan, all 46,000 members of the Guard and Reserve will go home next year, but most of the active-duty soldiers and Marines will be “redeployed” to Kuwait or Afghanistan. Even after that, many American troops will remain to train, advise, help secure the borders, and provide logistical and air support to the Iraqi regime.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Dems don’t entirely agree on establishing a timeline for these events, but most of the party seems to agree with the broader principles of “strategic redeployment.”<\/p>\n If the goal is to give the party an alternative approach to present to the electorate, Korb’s plan is perfect for the Dems. If the goal is to stop Republicans from asking, “What would Dems do differently?” this addresses that too.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" For months, national news outlets have gone to great lengths to point out that not all Dems agree on how best to deal with the war in Iraq. I’ve never fully understood the criticism — not only do top Republicans disagree on Iraq, but Dem unanimity seems unnecessary — but party leaders have responded by […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6670","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6670","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6670"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6670\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6670"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6670"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6670"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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\nIn November, Rep. Jack Murtha (D-Pa.) unveiled his redeployment plan<\/a> that drew the ire of the White House and Bush’s allies. The Korb report is similar, but as Slate’s Fred Kaplan noted<\/a>, it “fills in the blanks.”<\/p>\n