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Pelosi to redeploy from ‘situation’
Byron York, National Review
Forget the House leadership election and the intrigue that has surrounded it.

The real question is: Does the new Democratic leadership in the House have a clue about what to do in Iraq?

I think you know the answer to that. But just for the record, it’s no. And we’ve known that for a long time.

Last December, Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) was asked by the Washington Post what Democrats would do about the war if they were to win power.

This is the Post’s account of her answer:

“Pelosi said Democrats will produce an issue agenda for the 2006 elections but it will not include a position on Iraq. ‘There is no one Democratic voice ... and there is no one Democratic position,’ Pelosi said.”

There still isn’t. The only thing that is different is that Pelosi will soon be Speaker of the House.

Much attention has been paid to the war over the war inside the Bush administration. But in coming months the Democratic war over the war might well dominate the news.

Just look at the back-story to the Steny Hoyer-John Murtha leadership fight.

Last November and December, when Rep. Murtha (D-Pa.) came up with his proposal to “redeploy” U.S. troops out of Iraq — “My plan says redeploy to the periphery, to Kuwait, to Okinawa, and if there’s a terrorist activity that affects our allies or affects the United States’s national security, we can then go back in” — few, if any, Democrats dared to publicly embrace his idea.

But then Pelosi spoke up. “I’m endorsing what Mr. Murtha is saying,” she said. “I believe that a majority of our caucus clearly supports Mr. Murtha.”

The “majority of the caucus” thing was a bit much. “I believe that a precipitous withdrawal of American forces in Iraq could lead to disaster,” said Rep. Hoyer (D-Md.), begging to disagree, “spawning a civil war, fostering a haven for terrorists and damaging our nation’s security and credibility.”

And then, answering Hoyer, Pelosi chose to celebrate the virtues of diversity:

“On an issue that relates to war and the conduct of war, we have always said from the start this is completely an individual decision. There is no leadership conversation about this in terms of encouraging members to go one place or another, not like an issue like prescription drugs or Social Security, which are core issues to the Democratic Party. People have their own views on it, and we all respect them.”

Months ago, all sorts of people gave Pelosi the benefit of the doubt when she said things like that. For example, when she told the Post that there would be no party position on Iraq, the Post headlined the story, “Pelosi hails Democrats’ diverse war stances.”

That was a very nice way to put it. But with all due respect to the next Speaker, what the hell kind of policy is that? The our-policy-is-to-have-no-policy position might have been good enough to get Democrats through the election, but now it’s looking worse and worse each day.

Still, what would you expect from a party leader who not only doesn’t know what to do about the war — she doesn’t even know what to call it?

“This isn’t a war to win,” Pelosi told Fox News’s Brit Hume last week. “It’s a situation to be solved.”

Put that statement together with her comments during the Murtha controversy, and it’s fair to conclude that Pelosi believes the way to solve the situation is to redeploy from the situation.

It leads one to wonder: What kind of policies would Pelosi have advocated had she been in power during earlier situations?

You know, like World Situation I — sometimes known as the “situation to end all situations?”

Or World Situation II? (When the U.S. was actually fighting in Okinawa and could have redeployed to the periphery in Iraq.)

Or the Korean Situation. Or the Vietnam Situation. Or the Persian Gulf Situation.

How would Pelosi have solved those situations?

Now, while it’s completely fair to say that Pelosi does not appear to have any idea what to do in Iraq, it’s not fair to say that she’s alone in that.

Most Republicans seem to be in roughly the same boat. And in the days ahead we’ll probably find out that the Baker-Hamilton Iraq Study Group doesn’t really know, either.

But the difference is that Pelosi and her colleagues are now in power, and their policies will be subject to greater scrutiny than before.
Posted by: .com 2006-11-16
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=172169