Who's Emboldening Whom?

Amelia at American Daughter asked some serious questions yesterday, foremost among them this:

Resolutions in Congress of non-support of the war effort in Iraq are more than disquieting and they are coming from both sides of the aisle. Have these people no shame? No? Well, then how about memory, as most of the same people voted in support of going to war in the first place. When it morphs into something else entirely as this has done, it is not right to blame the President alone, as though they knew nothing at all of what he was up to over there until late last week, or just before the elections!

And why not blame the insurgents instead of the President for a change? They are the ones who are destroying Iraq’s shot at peace and a representative government, not George Bush. Could he have known this would morph (yes, I like that word and think it does apply in this instance) into a totally different situation than anticipated?

Why indeed? The morphing was firmly in place by the 2004 election and Kerry's infamous voting for the war before voting against the war. At that time, the Golden Mosque at Samarra was still standing and the insurgency, while nasty, was not taking the lives it is taking today. Even then, the leaders of the Democratic party were siezing on the insurgency as an excuse for their dis-emboldening on Iraq and their emboldening in their attacks on Bush.

By focusing on the so-called success of the insurgency, the Dems are supporting its success. Doubt is what the insurgents are after, and doubt is what the Dems are giving them. They want fear; they're getting fear. They want Dems; they've gotten Dems.

Every argument for redeployment is reason for them to build another bomb. Every hearing and news article on upcoming resolutions stating we have no resolve is reason for their resolve to grow.

Unless you're a Dem, of course. Then it's all Bush's fault:

"It's not the American people or the U.S. Congress who are emboldening the enemy," said Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del., and White House hopeful in 2008. "It's the failed policy of this president — going to war without a strategy, going to war prematurely."

Go ahead. Read it again. I know it's hard to understand. Yes, American people, it is what Bush did in 2002 that emboldens the enemy! Pay no attention to the fact that he's calling to increase troop strength and change the rules of engagement in order to really pound the insurgents! Ignore that he has ordered our troops to kill Iranian agents among the Shia militia! Forget that Iraq is suddenly following orders and militia are being attacked and are hurting.

Let's just talk about 2002, not 2007; that's the ticket!

Biden wants us to believe that the enemy is not emboldened by the fact that the Dems are in power and the Dems can't handle tough stuff like confronting global enemies and would just as soon cower at some unspecified redeployment point.

And please don't think that the Iranians, who are shipping IEDs to the Shia militia and providing strategic and financial support, are not emboldened when they read this lead in today's NYTimes:

As President Bush and his aides calibrate how directly to confront Iran, they are discovering that both their words and their strategy are haunted by the echoes of four years ago — when their warnings of terrorist activity and nuclear ambitions were clearly a prelude to war.

This time, they insist, it is different.

Could the NYT has sown any more doubt and discontent on the president's Iranian policy than to tie it to their time-tested "no WMDs" argument and the well-established Dem unwillingness to confront the jihadists? Do you think the Mullahs in Tehran aren't reading that and laughing out loud with joy?

Does NYT really think that we'll buy the line that the levels of intelligence about Iran's nuclear program is as fuzzy as what we knew about Saddam in 2001?

My list of questions, like Amelia's, is growing and the answers are increasingly frightening. I've saved my biggest questions until last. One of the mistakes Bush made in the initial planning of the war is underestimating the degree to which it would be a proxy war, providing a new theater for the ancient Shia/Sunni conflict. Do those who wish to end the war soon not see that? Do they not see that bringing the current flare-up to a Democratic end is in the interest of American security, and in the interest of anyone who doesn't want to see bodies by the thousands -- not dozens -- rotting in the hot sun of the oil-rich, conflict-rich Middle East?

Or is it really all about 2008 with them?

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Related Tags: War on terror, Iraq, Biden, Bush, Media bias