Extricating U.S. Troops From the Iraq Quagmire

Expected incoming U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's endorsement of Rep. Jack Murtha, Pennsylvania Democrat, as Democratic majority leader come January drew a preliminary line in the sand regarding her position as third in line for the presidency on withdrawal from Iraq - but the Pelosi-Murtha position is not that of a majority of Democrats and Republicans, so it will fall.

The benefit of Pelosi's endorsement of Murtha, expected to be defeated for majority leader in the House Democratic caucus by Rep. Steny Hoyer, is that we now see the split in Democratic ranks that will play out over the coming months as the new Democratic majority takes office in both the U.S. House and Senate and attempts to work its will on the Iraq problem.

Many sensible Republican conservatives agree with equally sensible Democratic conservatives and moderates that the Bush administration badly bungled in its misunderstanding of the Iraqi culture and sectarian divisions as it sent our troops to topple dictator Saddam Hussein and start our military occupation of Iraq.

The sectarian divisiveness, anti-American hatred, and senseless killings of both Iraqi people and U.S. troops that have since continued are emblematic of cultural and historic ignorance on the part of our national leadership that caused U.S. defeat in Vietnam three decades ago.

The Vietnam analogy is apt, because the United States has once again marched into a country that did not attack us, and our leaders have conjured up reasons to justify their decisions and to rally the country behind their imperialism.

The elections of November 7, 2006, demonstrated quite clearly that voters throughout our country did not buy the arguments. But we all support our wonderful troops. So what are we to do?

Certainly we should not "cut and run," pouring all the blood spent by our U.S. troops for Iraqi freedom down the drain. So the Pelosi-Murtha option is a non-starter.

But the Democratic argument for phased redeployment of our troops from Iraq, also supported by many Republicans in both houses of Congress, is going to happen if the new leadership in Congress on both Democratic and Republican sides is sensible and committed to the best interests of our troops and country, rather than the same old shameless partisan sniping and search for political advantage.

The wonderful people of our country are sick of that, and the sooner political and media hacks of all persuasions recognize that the better.

The encouraging news over the weekend was announcements by both Sen. John McCain of Arizona and former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani of New York that they are putting together the political machinery to run for president on the Republican side in 2007-08. Watch for Gov. Mitt Romney of Massachusetts to do the same.

So the country will start hearing more reasoned arguments from Republicans themselves, independent of both the Bush administration and extreme liberal Democratic critics, of a better course than we are now on.

As the recent elections showed, our voting public wants our president and Congress, with help from state governors and legislators, to refocus our country's priorities and figure a way to withdraw from Iraq properly, as soon as possible, while supporting our troops and our country's best interests every step of the way in both the short and long terms.

Hopefully our troop withdrawal will happen as we continue to push the new Iraqi government to end senseless divisions among the Iraqi people now that the heroic men and women of our armed services and allies have provided them liberty and opportunity by ousting the Hussein tyranny.

The bottom line is that it's now up to the Iraqis, with our continued help as we deliberately phase out and continue modernizing our armed forces for the longer struggle against the worldwide menace of cowboy terrorists. And that's what U.S. voters clearly told our American politicians in the elections.

A word about Donald Rumsfeld, our departing secretary of defense: I have watched him from my various perches on Capitol Hill for more than 30 years, first as congressman from Illinois, then as President Nixon's head of the U.S. Office of Economic Opportunity and ambassador to NATO; chief of staff for President Gerald Ford; his executive positions in the corporate world; and his most recent assignment for President Bush at the Pentagon.

All the brickbats against Rumsfeld from much lesser ideological critics are simply more of the same in the Washington political milieu which denigrates sincere and tireless public service.

There are too many people in the Washington bureaucracy and political community who are simply hacks who cannot appreciate, let alone match, the enormous contributions of a man like Donald Rumsfeld -- a true American patriot and hero who deserves our country's outspoken gratitude for his many decades of selfless service for human liberty and the good of the order in our own country and throughout the world.