Peace With Honor

[tagryn]

Mike Kinsley goes over the Democrats' "A New Direction for America" manifesto in Slate. I found this part hard to argue with:

Competence, of course, brings us back to Iraq. Apparently and unfortunately, President Bush is right that the Democrats have no "plan for victory." (Neither does he, of course. Nor, for that matter, do I. But I don't claim to have one. And I didn't start it.) For national security in general, the Democrats' plan is so according-to-type that you cringe with embarrassment: It's mostly about new cash benefits for veterans. Regarding Iraq specifically, the Democrats' plan has two parts. First, they want Iraqis to "assum[e] primary responsibility for securing and governing their country." Then they want "responsible redeployment" (great euphemism) of American forces.

Older readers may recognize this formula. It's Vietnamization—the Nixon-Kissinger plan for extracting us from a previous mistake. But Vietnamization was not a plan for victory. It was a plan for what was called "peace with honor" and is now known as "defeat."

In fairness, this really isn't that different from POTUS's "as they stand up, we'll stand down" plan. However, since it's 'their side' proposing it, I suspect a lot of Democrats will hail it as a new, fresh direction to Iraq.

Marc Cooper also weighs in on this.