More On Dems Iraq Strategy

This morning's Washington Post has a piece by David Broder, which touches on what I was getting at yesterday: the Democrats are finally uniting around a common message with the most pressing issue facing the nation - the war in Iraq (see below). Broder picks up on what I discussed yesterday - Sen. Joe Biden's role as one of the key Democratic voices on this issue. He also writes of freshman phenom, Sen. Barack Obama. Here's some of what Broder writes:

But the outlines of such a position emerged last week in speeches by two respected Democratic members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Joe Biden of Delaware and Barack Obama of Illinois. That they reached almost the same conclusion from opposite sides of the intraparty debate -- Biden an early and consistent supporter of the U.S. intervention against Saddam Hussein, and Obama an equally confirmed skeptic about the invasion -- adds to the significance of their statements.

Biden, the committee's senior Democrat, said in New York that it is time to scale back U.S. ambitions in Iraq and reduce troop commitment while shifting security responsibilities to the Iraqis. The next day, Obama, a freshman member of the committee, made many of the same points in Chicago...

What must happen to make it possible, they agree, is a significant acceleration in the training of Iraqi security forces and in the civil reconstruction projects needed to give Iraqis a sense of hope -- both of which will require a change in priorities and an improvement in operations by U.S. forces.

Both senators express hope that next month's election of a permanent government will help speed the reconciliation of the Sunnis to the plans of the Shiites and the Kurds, but they acknowledge that the critical decisions in this regard must be made by the Iraqis themselves...

Not only have Democrats found their voice, they may well have pointed the administration and the country toward a realistic and modestly hopeful course on Iraq.

The Democrats are gearing up for the midterm elections and are positioning themselves for an "I told you so" type campaign - that is, when the Administration begins withdrawing troops in 2006 (whether in large or small numbers remains to be seen), the Democrats will be on record calling for such action months earlier, while the Administration and Republicans will have looked reluctant to do so. With signs that officials in the Pentagon are preparing to at least draw down in the next year or so (see LA Times article cited below, http://the-last-polka.blogspot.com/2005/11/biden-outlines-case-for-iraq-timetable.html), it will be interesting to watch the politicians position themselves around the situation on the ground in Iraq.

UPDATE (11/27/05 11:51 AM): Apparently, the White House is now positioning itself in line with Biden's proposals. Via AFP:

WASHINGTON (AFP) - The White House has for the first time claimed ownership of an
Iraq withdrawal plan, arguing that a troop pullout blueprint unveiled this past week by a Democratic senator was "remarkably similar" to its own.

It also signaled its acceptance of a recent US Senate amendment designed to pave the way for a phased US military withdrawal from the violence-torn country.

The statement by White House spokesman Scott McClellan came in response to a commentary published in The Washington Post by Joseph Biden, the top Democrat of the
Senate Foreign Relations Committee, in which he said US forces will begin leaving Iraq next year "in large numbers."...

Biden's ideas, relayed first in a November 21 speech in New York, however, got a much friendlier reception.

Even though President George W. Bush has never publicly issued his own withdrawal plan and criticized calls for an early exit, the White House said many of the ideas expressed by the senator were its own.

In the statement, which was released under the headline "Senator Biden Adopts Key Portions Of Administration's Plan For Victory In Iraq," McClellan said the Bush administration welcomed Biden's voice in the debate.

"Today, Senator Biden described a plan remarkably similar to the administration's plan to fight and win the war on terror," the spokesman went on to say...

Interesting that the White House, via its hopeless Press Secretary, is now "claiming ownership" of ideas that have been, until this point, universally denounced by the President and Vice President. Who says they don't read polls...