Iraq Will Shape Presidential Campaign

USA Today reports that a majority of the public thinks the Iraq war was a mistake, yet less than 1 in 5 Americans believes the U.S. should withdraw immediately, no matter the consequences (a result in line with Gallup's recent poll finding just 17 percent in favor of an immediate, unconditional withdrawal).

The USA Today findings bolster the argument I made today in rebuttal to Glenn Greenwald's unprincipled attack on David Kuhn and his piece today at the Politico, "Support for War Effort Highest Since 2006."

Here's the summary from USA Today:

The debate over Iraq is likely to be sharpened in this year's presidential campaign in a way not seen since President Bush ordered the invasion launched in 2003.

McCain has been the invasion's most consistent defender on Capitol Hill and an early critic of how the administration was executing the war. He's likely to stand against Illinois Sen. Obama, who has made his opposition to the war the foundation of his presidential bid, or New York Sen. Clinton, who says she would withdraw her vote to authorize the Iraq war if she could and promises to start a pullout within 60 days of taking office.

"This election is going to be a referendum, to some extent, on the war," says Alan Abramowitz, a political scientist at Emory University who studies public opinion on Iraq.

In the USA Today poll, six in 10 Americans said the United States should set a timetable for withdrawal and stick to it no matter what. Just 35% said U.S. troops should remain until the situation in Iraq gets better, a number as low as it's ever been.

That would seem to be a boon to Democrats, but the politics of Iraq aren't that simple.

Among the groups of anti-war voters, McCain draws support from one-third of those who are the most pessimistic about the future of the Iraq conflict, a group that includes a mix of Republicans and Democrats. In a head-to-head contest against Clinton, McCain also wins one-third of those who want to get out but feel obliged to achieve more security first. He has argued to them that, whatever differences they have on the wisdom of the invasion, he is the candidate best able to stabilize Iraq.

McCain's appeal to some anti-war voters makes it possible that he could put together a majority coalition — or at least neutralize the issue — despite the downturn in public opinion toward the war.

"You cannot go into a country and destroy everything and leave it in chaos without helping them rebuild some kind of infrastructure," says Jennifer Curry, 59, one of the Delaware residents who joined the roundtable discussion. She supports withdrawing U.S. troops but only when Iraq is reasonably stable.

"I mean, there's a limit," she says, "but I think we owe it to them to give them a shot."

"If we leave there now, what will happen?" counters Burkett, a former Marine. "If we wait a year and leave there, what will happen? The answer will still be the same whether we're there six months or whether we wait 10 years and leave."

Notice here how even people who are tired of the deployment want some assurance that the U.S. leaves Iraq relatively stable, which could require a longer deployment.

Also, check out Abe Greenwald at Commentary, who identifies the problem facing the Democrats in November:

Here is their unenviable task: to tell the American voter that his or her confidence in America’s ability to win at last is misplaced; to convince them what we need to do instead is pull our troops out and call for a troop surge in Afghanistan. Even more challenging for the Democrats is that time is not on their side. As recently as September 2007, only 42 percent of Americans believed the U.S. would succeed in Iraq. That number jumped 11 points in five months. The Democratic national convention is another five months away, and the benefits of the troop surge continue to mount. Just imagine the presidential nominee having to tell 64 percent of the country that they’re wrong about American victory.

The Democrats hitched their presidential hopes to a sense of national defeat that wasn’t sustained by circumstances. If there’s one thing every military expert will tell you, it’s that war is fluid. Defeatism does not allow for this fluidity. Once you declare a war lost, you’ve closed the door on the possibilities that arise with the changing nature of the fight and any potential innovations to capitalize on them. In this sense, defeatism is a practical handicap, whereas striving for victory necessarily depends upon the ability to adapt to a shifting landscape.

Enter John McCain. He recognized the failings of the Rumsfeld plan and, determined not to quit, pushed for new ideas. Having backed the Petraeus plan that’s responsible for the shift in Iraq, he doesn’t need to dance around the pro-victory majority—let alone convince them to throw in the towel. Seeing these new figures, the Democrats will at some point try to back off on the defeatist rhetoric, but there’s only so far they can go and not seem preposterous. A 180-degree turn on Iraq would create too much fallout about flip-flopping, experience, and character. It’s not clear how the Democrats are going to wriggle out of this one. But the man who changed when it most mattered can stay in one place for a while.

See also today's earlier entries, "Public Support for Iraq at Highest Since 2006," and "Supporting the Troops."

Photo Credit: USA Today