Monday, December 15, 2003

Dems lose hot campaign issue?

The more I absorb the coverage of the caputure of Saddam, the more I'm convinced that the real story that spins out of this among real people is: Great! Now where's bin Laden?

Almost without fail people with an ounce of sense have the very same reaction: It's good that Saddam has been caught. Let's make him pay for his crimes against Iraq (note that NOBODY demands he pay for crimes against America), and let's get on with finding bin Laden and destroying al Qaida.

Most also hope that violence in Iraq will now abate; they are going to be disappointed in this wish, I fear. Note that people DO NOT say THEY feel safer with Saddam in custody, only that they hope the troops stop dying. If it were not well concealed that the U.S. has taken thousands of casualties in Iraq so far as well, people would also surely express a hope that the soldiers stop being maimed and injured as well.

In a very real way, this removes a useful distraction for Bush. As long as we occupy Iraq and Saddam was free, there was an unhealthy preoccupation with the WRONG villian. Now that there is no longer a scapegoat hiding in the desert, Bush has to deal with the real issue: al Qaida and bin Laden.

Unfortunately for him, the Democrats' questions about his ties to Saudi Arabia and the bin Ladens are going to get more frequent, and more pointed, now that bin Laden will re-emerge as public enemy #1. The investigation into 9/11 will also be pulled out of the Administration's coal bin and dusted off now that the 9/11 commission is set to release it's wholly inadequate report. Bush will be facing charges of obstructing the investigation, underfunding the commission, and slow-walking the investigation in general. When combined with the recrudescence of bin Laden, these issues and anger of the 9/11 families are going to be a much larger political liability than they have been over the last 2 years.

No, the GOP has nothing to celebrate in the capture of Saddam. If they were really smart, they would have dropped him back down a very deep hole rather than pulled him out and put him on camera.

The Dems, if they play it right, and it looks like some of them will (Liarman and Swearry excepted), the capture gives them a change to demostrate clearly that Saddam is not the issue. As long as the removal of Saddam and the hunt for Saddam antimated the occupation, the issues were obscured. With Saddam gone, his evil no longer serves as an easy justification for continued occupation or facile rationale for it. "We got Saddam," will serve as justification for carte blanc for about a week and then people will take the acheivment for granted. Now Bush will have to deal with the reason we continue in Iraq in a much more policy and real-politik driven fashion. If he draws down forces with violence continuing, he looks weak. If he steps up the reprisals or goes with an Israeli type strategy of selective assassination and ever-tighter control as is rumoured, Iraq will explode.

No, I don't envy Bush when he finishes with whatever ceremonial theater Rove contrives for the capture of Saddam. The long term liabilities far outweigh the benefits gained.

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