Re: TownHall.com – 5/2/2008 – “O’Reilly-Clinton Interview Shows Dem Flaw” – Dick Morris & Eileen McGann

What Morris & McGann seem to miss is that McCain’s position in Iraq is not to win in Iraq but to keep fighting while not allocating enough resources to win.

Most Democrats of national stature, including both Clinton and Obama, would agree that if we could achieve our objectives in Iraq at a cost we are willing to bear (in lives, money, and time) we should stay and fight ‘til our objectives are met. But Democrats also believe that our goals are not achievable at a cost our society (including an overwhelming majority of Republicans) would agree to. Thus continuing to fight with inadequate resources is a failing strategy.

Our choices are not just “fight and win” or “cut and run” --- there is a third, “fight and not win”.

Democrats may be guilty of choosing “cut and run”. Most Democrats believe that we have defined a set of objectives in Iraq such that winning is impossible and that in the end Iraqis will not want what we want them to want, and thus to win we will have to perpetually impose our will on Iraq against the wishes of its people, something that no democratic nation can successfully do for long. Democrats choose “cut and run” over “fight and not win”, not over “fight and win”.

Republicans claim to support “fight and win” but are oblivious to questions of what the Iraqis really are willing to accept from America’s intervention and whether Americans (including a huge majority of Republicans) will ever agree to allocate enough resources to actually win the fight, and as such are actually supporting “fight and not win”.

Most Americans are unwilling to even consider allocating the kind of strength necessary to win in Iraq. Until they allocate the appropriate level of resources, the Democrats have the superior strategy.