I have posted many times on the suicidal idiocy of pulling our troops out of Iraq and giving al Qaeda a huge PR victory over the US which would inflame the Muslim communities for decades to come to. The Surrendercrats, as I like to call them, want to stop having to deal with Iraq. Especially before the 2008 election where they will have to come up with real answers, and they know it could be their Achille’s Heel that lets a Rep win the Presidency. But is their strategy a new one – or just a repeat of our mistakes in Iraq 2 years ago? Interestingly there are very important parallels to what went wrong in Iraq (and which is now being righted with the Surge) and what the Democrats keep harping on:

ISTORY seems to be settling on some criticisms of the early conduct of the Iraq war. On the theory that America could liberate and leave, force levels were reduced too early, security responsibilities were transferred to Iraqis before they were ready, and planning for future challenges was unrealistic. “Victory in Iraq,” one official of the Coalition Provisional Authority told me a couple of years ago, “was defined as decapitating the regime. No one defined victory as creating a sustainable country six months down the road.”

Now Democrats running for president have thought deeply and produced their own Iraq policy: they want to cut force levels too early, transfer responsibility to Iraqis before they are ready, and offer no plan to deal with the chaos that would result six months down the road. In essential outline, they have chosen to duplicate the early mistakes of an administration they hold in contempt.

Too true. And one cannot help but note that mistakes that allow al-Qaeda to grow in strength and control land and resources, require us to increase our commitment (and losses) to undo those mistakes. When we tried to draw down al-Qaeda bombed a key Shiite mosque and ignited violent sectarian violence. However, al-Qaeda also began brutally dominating the local people in its strongholds and killing any who opposed. The Fascists came out in al-Qaeda.

The bombing of the same mosque a year later has not turned the tide back to violence. The population is spent and they now recognize the horror of allying with al-Qaeda. But that does not mean al-Qaeda cannot entice others outside of Iraq. And so in the essential outline, as the author noted, we are being asked to repeat this mistake on a much grander scale.

Bush and his administration DID respond to the resulting chaos of the premature draw downs with the Surge which, combined with al-Qaeda’s inherent brutality, turned the tide on the Iraqi streets. But the Dems have yet to propose their contingency plans if a premature draw down in Iraq produces a reinvigorated al-Qaeda with legions of fighters in countries across the ME. We withdrew too early in a handful of provinces in Iraq and look at the price. Think of this now on a regional scale and you can see why what the Surrendercrats are offering is the riskiest scheme ever proposed in the last 100 years. It even dwarfs Neville Chamberlain’s attempts to appease Hitler through sham treaties.