It’s almost amusing to see Republicans walk the tightrope. They’ve insisted for years that all decisions about U.S. [tag]troop[\/tag] deployment in [tag]Iraq[\/tag] have to be dictated by conditions on the ground and the judgment of military leaders in Iraq. They also admit, usually behind the scenes, that a serious drawdown in forces might give [tag]Republicans[\/tag] a boost in the [tag]midterm elections[\/tag].<\/p>\n
Sometimes, a Republican even walks the tightrope in public<\/a>.<\/p>\n The withdrawal of 20,000-40,000 U.S. troops from Iraq this fall would greatly help Republican chances in the November election, Rep. [tag]Mark Souder[\/tag] (R-Ind.) said at a fundraiser Thursday at the National Rifle Association.<\/p>\n Souder acknowledged in his remarks that the war in Iraq has dampened support for Republican candidates but added that withdrawing 30,000 troops could have a big impact, said Martin Green, Souder’s spokesman.<\/p>\n The congressman said it would amount to an “[tag]’October Surprise[\/tag]’ in its effect, although he dismissed the idea that a U.S. troop withdrawal would begin for domestic political reasons.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Of course, it would be cynical to think that partisan, electoral motivations might help dictate the administration’s decisions in Iraq. It’s not like Bush has ever allowed such considerations to enter his mind before, right? Oh wait…<\/a><\/p>\n [The 2004 U.S. presidential] election, and the political considerations that go along with it, have been driving our military strategy for the past two years. Before the war, we passed up a chance to take out terrorist mastermind Abu Musab Zarqawi<\/a> — for political reasons. We invaded with too few troops — for political reasons. We lowballed the cost of the war — for political reasons. We ignored the UN and then turned around and pleaded for their help — for political reasons. Then we installed Iyad Allawi as president behind the UN’s back — for political reasons.<\/p>\n And just recently we’ve learned that the Marines were yo-yoed in and out of Fallujah<\/a> — for political reasons. The president has bizarrely dismissed his own intelligence agencies’ analysis of Iraq as “guessing”<\/a> — for political reasons. He’s ignored the advice of his own generals about troop requirements for the upcoming elections<\/a> — for political reasons. And assaults on Baathist enclaves have been postponed until December<\/a> — for fairly obvious political reasons.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n So, of course, Souder wants the administration to bring home 20,000-40,000 U.S. troops from Iraq before November, but believes political reasons will be completely irrelevant. How could anyone doubt the sincerity?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It’s almost amusing to see Republicans walk the tightrope. They’ve insisted for years that all decisions about U.S. [tag]troop[\/tag] deployment in [tag]Iraq[\/tag] have to be dictated by conditions on the ground and the judgment of military leaders in Iraq. They also admit, usually behind the scenes, that a serious drawdown in forces might give [tag]Republicans[\/tag] […]<\/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-7307","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7307","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=7307"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7307\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7307"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7307"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7307"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}