In Washington, Iraq has unequivocally taken center stage. This week is all about two men, General David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker, and their report to Congress and the nation about the current state of affairs in Iraq.
The content of this report didn't come as much of a surprise. In recent weeks, a growing chorus of voices has noted progress and improvements there. These include such unlikely individuals as Congressman Brian Baird (D-Wash.), who opposed the war at the outset, and Congressman Jerry McNerney (D-Calif.) who was elected in part for his opposition to the war.
To many Democrats, this progress, however slight, is entirely infuriating as well as embarrassing. It threatens to make the Democratic leadership look spectacularly foolish after their months of opportunistic defeatism. One member of the House leadership noted in late July that an upbeat Petraeus report would be "a real big problem for us." This of course came after Senator Harry Reid (D-Nev.) proclaimed the war as lost and gleefully predicted that bad news from Iraq would allow Democrats to win more seats in Congress.
Part of the Democrat's recent hair-pulling and hand-wringing stems from the fact that Petraeus and Crocker are widely respected-both were unanimously confirmed by the Senate. Petraeus is especially problematic: He is not only widely popular (in a weekend poll, 52 percent of respondents viewed him favorably while only 17 percent regarded him unfavorably-this compared to Congress's 23-percent approval rating), he is also the epitome of a warrior-scholar, with a Ph.D. from Princeton in addition to an impressive military resume.
None of this has of course stopped outside groups from assailing their credibility-the extreme-left organization MoveOn.org ran ads in Monday's New York Times smearing General Petraeus as "General Betray Us." MoveOn.org and others have also sought to portray the two men as the administration's stooges in spite of their congressional seal of approval.
Some in Congress have also apparently decided that while they might not be able to get away with attacks on the leadership, they might still get away with attacks on the troops. Senator Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) recently claimed that the turnaround in Anbar province-all but abandoned a year ago-was not the result of the toil and sacrifice of our troops, but in fact in spite of the surge; this without a shred of evidence. No doubt Schumer-like Senator Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), who once famously compared American soldiers to Nazis, Soviets and the Khmer Rouge (and who on Monday, before Petraeus testified, accused him of "manipulating" the data)-still claims to "support the troops."
Both anti-war activists and congressional Democrats succeeded in making a spectacle of the hearings-the activists by repeatedly attempting to drown out testimony with their imbecilic chanting, only to be dragged from the room, and congressmen with statements that sought to undercut Petraeus and Crocker even before they spoke.
All of this speaks to a larger phenomenon: an aversion to facts by the inhabitants of a progressive cloud cuckoo land. Despite the reports of journalists and members of Congress from across the ideological spectrum, as well as from Petraeus and Crocker, some refuse to admit progress.
Many also favor an immediate withdrawal without regard for the consequences. An American withdrawal before Iraq can see to its own security would be catastrophic both for the Iraqi people and for American interests. In a macabre repetition of 1975, when a Democratic Congress abandoned South Vietnam to bloody defeat at the hands of the Soviet-backed North and paved the way for genocide in Southeast Asia, many in this Democratic Congress are willing to abandon Iraq and risk genocide as well as the rise of a Iran as a regional hegemon.
In his inaugural address, President John Kennedy proclaimed that "we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship... in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty." Long-dead is that Democratic Party. That Kennedy's purported heirs have put partisanship before all else-seeking defeat disguised as withdrawal in order to discredit a widely disliked president and undermining national security for pure political gain, callously gambling with thousands of Iraqi lives in the process-is deeply disturbing but currently the order of the day.
Thankfully, not all Democrats in Congress are cowed by vengeful party activists or stubbornly opposed to facts. Despite craven attempts to the contrary, the tidings brought by Petraeus and Crocker mean that the United States is unlikely to abandon Iraq for the time being.
Gill Stevens is a Trinity senior. His column runs every other Wednesday.
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