A couple of weekends back on the Chris Matthews Show, NBC's Andrea Mitchell floated the following story: Senate Republicans will effectively abandon the war in Iraq by the late summer unless the Bush escalation succeeds.
MITCHELL: I think the Republicans are going to crack. What I've been told from inside the moderate center of the Republican caucus is that the vote in favor of the president this week -- it was against the president but the Republicans holding for the president -- was misleading. That they really are not in favor of the surge. They don't believe it's going to work. But they basically said the president has until August, until Labor Day. After that, if it doesn't work, they're running.
This view was echoed by Noah Feldman, writing in The New York Times magazine Sunday.
But the `surge" isn't just a way into Iraq -- it is also, for at least some in the administration, a shortcut to getting out of it. If basic security can be achieved even briefly -- especially before the 2008 elections -- Republicans with influence will advocate pulling most troops back while claiming that this time the mission really has been accomplished. It's unlikely that a short-term peace will hold, but at least it might give the U.S. the cover to say that it has not lost the war. If Iraq collapses 6 or 18 or 36 months after U.S. troops are out, Iraqis can then be blamed for the failure. Erstwhile supporters of the war are already starting to justify this plan by hinting darkly that the Iraqis have to take responsibility for themselves -- as if they could be expected to succeed in providing security and basic services when the world's richest superpower has so abjectly failed.
The "Republicans will soon begin work on ending the Iraq War" meme is one that we've heard somewhat frequently in recent years. During the lead up to the 2004 presidential election, some assumed that President Bush would announce a deescalation of the war effort, similar to 1968's "October Surprise" by President Lyndon Johnson that bombing in Vietnam would be halted and that a peace deal was imminent. Likewise, there were those who believed that President Bush would make a noticeable effort to bring home some American troops before the 2006 midterm elections in a move to assuage the concerns of voters, thus lessening the potential downside for Republicans.
Of course President Bush did not draw down American forces before either of the last two elections. What's more, aside from a handful of GOP Congressmen and Senators, the vast majority of Republicans on Capitol Hill have remained loyal the President's Iraq policy, including most of those who faced serious challenges last fall. For every Chuck Hagel or Walter Jones, there are literally dozens of other Republicans who have continued their support for an unending American engagement in Iraq.
And what of the successes of the so-called surge? The early indicators do not look good. According to icasualties.org, which tracks casualties and fatalities in Iraq, Iraqi civilian and security forces and deaths were up more than 11 percent from February to March on a per day basis. April is shaping up to be the deadliest month for American forces in the country in nearly two and a half years. Republicans and pundits can talk about the possibility that the situation in Iraq will fundamentally change for the better within the next six months but it is far from clear that such a change will actually occur no matter how strongly they will it.
In the unfortunate circumstance that the Bush escalation does not bear fruit in successes on the ground in Iraq by August, will there really be a widespread defection among the Republican ranks in Congress? If the past is any indicator, Republicans and the pundits with whom they speak will put out yet another goal for change in another six months -- a process that will be repeated again and again.
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