The Democrats are going to have a real tough time in 2008, and it will all be over Iraq. Their dire (and premature) predictions that we could not turn things around in Iraq are going to be played over and over again, in opposition to the swelling news of our amazing progress in that country (see here, here and here for recent success stories from just the last few days). So in light of the immense progress, and the drop off in casualties that are a result of the fighting, let’s look at the evolution of the Democrats’ disastrous proposals on Iraq:

Way back in December of 2006, before the Presidential races took off, one Senator Hillary Clinton was adamantly opposed to idea of applying more forces to stop al-Qaeda’s reign of violence:

Clinton, a member of the Senate Armed Services committee, said she was not in favor of a proposed “surge” of some 20,000-40,000 American troops into Baghdad to quell the sectarian violence there. President Bush is reportedly considering such a move as one of many options to improve the situation in Iraq.

Nevada Sen. Harry Reid, the incoming Senate Majority Leader, suggested over the weekend he would support a short term troop increase if it would speed up the time frame for pulling troops out of Iraq.

Clinton indicated she was skeptical of such a proposal.

“I am not in favor of doing that unless it’s part of a larger plan,” Clinton said. “I am not in favor of sending more troops to continue what our men and women have been told to do with the government of Iraq pulling the rug out from under them when they actually go after some of the bad guys.”

Clinton, who voted in 2002 to authorize military intervention in Iraq, said she was wary of increased military presence in the war-torn country.

“I’m not going to believe this president again,” Clinton said.

Clinton was obviously too focused on the messenger and not the message. Not a good sign for someone wanting to be President. She missed the potential of the strategy because she was focused on who was promoting it. A clear case of BDS. If you want a laugh you should look at Clinton’s latest claims where she seems to always have known the Surge would work! She flip-flopped so fast in August it was impossible NOT to notice her ability to be nothing more than a mindless weather vain:

ON MONDAY, Sen. Hillary Clinton said Gen. David Petraeus’ troop surge in Iraq is working. On Wednesday she said “it has failed.” Wow, success to failure in two days, and without a single decisive battle! That must be some kind of record.

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She previously (in March and again in May) noted the surge’s successes.

The reaction from the left was predictable. She got pounded. So on Wednesday she told the New York Daily News, “The surge was designed to give the Iraqi government time to take steps to ensure a political solution. It has failed.”

All we can say about Hillary with any confidence is she doesn’t have a clue about what is going on and where these strategies could lead. She was wrong about what impact the Surge would have. Just wrong. But she was not alone.

Let’s take a trip down memory lane and look at what Senators Pelosi and Reid had to say in a letter to President Bush about the Surge, back in January of this year:

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Speaker Nancy Pelosi today sent the following letter to President Bush urging him to reject his reported plan to escalate the war in Iraq by increasing troop levels and delaying the ability of the Iraqi government take control of their own future.

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Surging forces is a strategy that you have already tried and that has already failed. Like many current and former military leaders, we believe that trying again would be a serious mistake. They, like us, believe there is no purely military solution in Iraq. There is only a political solution. Adding more combat troops will only endanger more Americans and stretch our military to the breaking point for no strategic gain. And it would undermine our efforts to get the Iraqis to take responsibility for their own future. We are well past the point of more troops for Iraq.

What Generals Pelosi and Reid clearly did not understand was the Iraqis WERE ready to throw off the jackboot of al-Qaeda, but they simply needed our help. The Iraqis had spent enough time under the violent oppression of al-Qaeda to realize the true Satan was Bin Laden. So when we did come to their aid they rose up en masse and started to hunt down our joint enemy. Generals Pelosi and Reid never contemplated the possibility al-Qaeda was as bad as they seemed and that the option of allying with America would win out – eventually.

But that was pre-Surge rhetoric. In June of this year, after Anbar had clearly demonstrated there was a well spring of Iraqi anger ready to take on al-Qaeda for all the atrocities al-Qaeda had committed on them (so they could get on Western News headlines), Pelosi and Reid once again drew some bizarre conclusions from the clear progress being made in Anbar:

Senate Majority leader Harry Reid and House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi challenged the president over Iraq by sending him a letter, ahead of a White House meeting later on Wednesday.

“As many had foreseen, the escalation has failed to produce the intended results,” the two leaders wrote.

“The increase in US forces has had little impact in curbing the violence or fostering political reconciliation.

“It has not enhanced Americas national security. The unsettling reality is that instances of violence against Iraqis remain high and attacks on US forces have increased.

“In fact, the last two months of the war were the deadliest to date for US troops.

Generals Pelosi and Reid again were premature in their conclusions, since the Surge had only been put in place in June and the action was just to begin. Somehow I don’t think it too much to ask of our leaders to understand the processes and pace of waging wars like this. You don’t send the troops over one week and then ask the next week why haven’t you won the war yet. This impatience illustrates a naiveté and ignorance that is just stunning. Let me digress for a moment and list the results of The Surge as listed in recent success stories I have posted on – results that were yet to come in June when Pelosi and Reid sent another one of their idiotic letters playing at being generals:

Army Lt. Gen. Raymond T. Odierno, the day-to-day military commander in Iraq, said 53 of the armor-piercing bombs were found on roads in October — 30 that detonated and 23 that were discovered before they exploded. That is down from 99 in July and 78 in August. In September, 52 exploded or were detected.

During a five-day stretch between October 19 and 23, there were no deaths among coalition forces. Although three US servicemen died from “non-hostile causes”, this was the longest period without combat deaths for nearly four years. And, between October 27 and 29, there were three more days without coalition deaths.

In Baghdad’s Amiriya district, where 14 US soldiers were killed in May alone, there has not been a roadside bomb explosion since 7 August, said Lieutenant Colonel Dale Kuehl, battalion commander in the area.

But there is evidence that unfettered violence is subsiding and fragile stability emerging. Last month saw the lowest death toll in 18 months. In Baghdad, monthly civilian casualties between May and October fell from 1,070 to 317, still too many, but part of an encouraging trend.

But the recent numbers do raise American and even Iraqi hopes. In October, 36 American service people were killed, the lowest toll since March 2006, down from 65 in September and 126 in May. Iraqi civilian deaths are down too. A tally compiled by Iraqi Body Count, a fastidious anti-war lobby group, from press and morgue reports will probably reach around 1,200 deaths: still a terrible toll, but fewer than the 2,500 victims in August and 3,000 in July.

As much as 80 percent of al Qaeda’s media structure has been destroyed, greatly hampering the group’s ability to spread propaganda, recruit and gain financing for its operations, Smith said.

Still, Iraqi citizens are continuing to mobilize their local village forces against al Qaeda and other extremist groups, Smith said. So far, nearly 70,000 concerned citizens have formed 120 groups across the country, he said.

Still, Iraqi authorities and U.S. forces say a yearlong offensive against Al Qaeda in Iraq has put the group on the run in Diyala. In the past year, overall violence in the province has fallen from 1,100 incidents a month to 400, according to the U.S. military.

I could go on and on with news and data showing the Surge is making a significant change in Iraq. The numbers do not lie. They only emphasize how wrong – deadly wrong – the Democrats were in their calls to runaway and surrender Iraq to al-Qaeda’s thugs. And it would have been al-Qaeda’s thugs who won because since the Surge, and the targeting of al-Qaeda by their one time Iraqi allies, the violence has been dropping off as al-Qaeda has been decimated. This tells the truth of what was behind the violence. No Sunni or Shiite Iraqi factions disappeared, only al-Qaeda and their allies.

al-Qaeda is violent – something any American leader should understand after 9-11. But apparently it is something beyond the grasp of Democrats. Let’s look at one more prediction of doom by a Democrat leader, with the 20-20 hindsight we can now afford to use to assess this person’s qualification to be President. Sen Biden, it is your turn to step up and insert your big foot into your big mouth:

[AJStrata: June 1, 2007] Sen. Joseph Biden (D-Del.) said “enough is enough” after a top Pentagon official suggested on Thursday that a true assessment of the troop surge in Iraq could not be completed by September.

“The surge has not worked and will not work because its basic premise — to give time for a strong central government to take hold — is fatally flawed,” he said in a press release issued Friday.

“Fatally flawed” describes the Democrats’ strategic thinking. They went for the votes in a hope to appease their base. They did not go for the success in Iraq which would help the world avoid another Fascist movement raging across the globe leaving massive death and destruction in its wake. Bin Laden and his Islamo Fascist thugs want power and will go to any extent to get it. They have proven to be as bloodthirsty (if not more) than the Nazis of the early last century. The fact is they went on a killing spree of Iraqi Muslims to gain notoriety in the press and fuel the hand wringing by the left which claimed they could create al-Qaeda’s success by pulling out American troops.

It was, and still is, an abhorrent symbiosis which proves why we need to stop politics at the edge of our borders. al-Qaeda kept on killing because each time they did kill the Dems ran to a pliant SurrenderMedia and claimed all was lost in Iraq. Each time a vote or major Congressional event was upcoming al-Qaeda would slaughter thousands to help emphasize the Dems’ message of doom and gloom. It was a terrible enabling role the Dems played, inviting hope for al-Qaeda and training them like Pavlov’s dog to kill for media attention, right on cue.

Gratefully the entire symbiotic arrangement backfired. The Iraqis saw al-Qaeda as the evil animals they were. They realized their role in the brave new caliphate was as butchered animals for PR purposes. And they realized the only hope of removing the cancer they had ignorantly let into their communities was with the help of Americans. The Iraqis rose up, but not against America as al-Qaeda had planned. Iraq rose up against Bin Laden’s butchers.

So the Surge turned the tide and unleashed THE VERY grass roots force that Clinton claimed would arise if we left the country. She had it 180 degrees backwards. As Anbar illustrated, we only needed to rescue the Iraqis from al-Qaedas grasp and give them support to throw off al-Qaeda to win this war. In hindsight, running away was an even worse idea than it seemed when it was proposed. But now we know. The question is will the Dems fess up to their mistakes, or will they try and pretend they never made these horrible mistakes in judgement? My guess is they still don’t have a clue and will pretend they were never wrong. Fine with me – Americans, on the whole, no better.