The politics of the Iraq War

Robert Scheer is one member of the punditocracy who kept his head about the Iraq War from the time the buildup to war started. Maybe that's a big reason that he got bounced from the Los Angeles Times, like Jules Witcover did from the Baltimore Sun. Fortunately, both are still writing and providing some of the best commentaries of any in our "press corps". Today, Scheer writes about War as a political strategy San Francisco Chronicle 07/05/06:

The most recent source of optimism was the much ballyhooed death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the al Qaeda leader in Iraq who the White House had systematically built up in importance to frame our occupation of Iraq as part of the "war on terror."

The reality, however, always has been that so-called "foreign fighters" play a small part in the virulent Iraqi civil war. ...

Thus, we shouldn't be surprised that Zarqawi's death has not brought any diminution of violence ... In the past few days alone, we have seen the abduction of a top Sunni female legislator, a blast in a Shiite market that killed 66 people and a rise in violence against British forces in the once-pacified south.

The recent violence in Baghdad is taking place during what is supposed to be a major campaign by US and Iraqi troops to pacify the capital city. But we're hearing surprisingly little about that effort. (Or is it silly to be surprised by that?)

Scheer criticizes two prominent Democrats on the war:

In fact, the Karl Rove-led campaign to retain GOP control of Congress now is trying to spin the war as an asset, and all too many Democrats are willing to play along. Chief among those Bush fellow travelers is Sen. Joe Lieberman, who on Monday announced his intention to run as a ticket-splitting independent, should Democrats in Connecticut reject his Senate re-election bid because of his cheerleading for the war.

"I have loyalties that are greater than those to my party," said the 2000 vice presidential candidate, who last December made the anti-democratic claim that, "We undermine the president's credibility at our nation's peril."

Less overt is the waffling of Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., but her confusion is arguably more damaging to the Democrats, given her position as the party's front-running presidential aspirant for 2008. At least Lieberman stands exposed as a true believer in the Bush crusade, whereas Clinton continues to support a war that her confidants tell us she knows is wrong.

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