“It’s very simple, really.”
Is it? What makes you think the GOP is being any less political in Iraq?
The Democrats are taking advantage of the fact that GWB, and the GOP have been unable to define victory in a meaningful way on Iraq.
The first rule of avoiding defeat is define what victory is. GWB laid out non-military goals that are not achievable as being the definition of victory. We are not pursuing military victory in Iraq, in case you haven’t noticed.
So, unable to define real “victory” the GOP allows the Dems to define it as an absence of “defeat” which is defined as a pullout from Iraq before the GOP and GWB can figure out and sell another alternate definition of “victory”.
“Military victory” is capture or neutralization of the enemies command and control. The Coalition defeated the Iraqi Army with ease in 2003 by this definition. Failures began with not securing the military assets of the vanquished army. The insurgency in Iraq also has command and control. You may like to speculate where it is located. The current failure is the open boarder points between Iraq and Iran as well as Iraq and Syria. The insurgency can be neutralized by cutting off supplies from Iran and Syria. It is only a matter of time after that goal that the insurgents consume the military assets the coalition failed to secure. How to stop supplies from Iran and Syria? Declaring a “forbidden zone” approximately five miles thick along each boarder and destroying anything that moves in that zone — anything from a truck load of fruit to munitions. This will leave a job of policing the new Iraqi Army and preventing diverting of their supplies to the insurgents. The last step is to arrest and prosecute those advocating violence as a tool of politics. Victory!