In Iraq war vote, Democrats fail

Going into a Senate debate on Iraq this week, the Republicans appeared intent on portraying the Democrats in two negative ways – first, as divided (read: weak) on how to proceed in the war, and second, as quitters wanting to "cut and run."

Whether the debate, and one held last week in the House, will affect public opinion on the war remains to be seen. But as a piece of political strategy, analysts saw Republicans taking a weak hand – a war that has become chronically unpopular – and making the most of it.

The difficulty for the Democrats is that they "exposed their weaknesses and showed none of their strengths," says Marshall Wittmann, a senior fellow at the Democratic Leadership Council. "They played into the hands of [Bush adviser] Karl Rove, who is planning to run an election based on Democrats' divisions and weaknesses."

The Senate handily defeated two Democratic resolutions on the Iraq war Thursday. One, offered by Sens. John Kerry of Massachusetts and Russ Feingold of Wisconsin, called for US withdrawal by July 2007. Another nonbinding resolution, by Sens. Carl Levin of Michigan and Jack Reed of Rhode Island, called for US troop redeployment to begin by the end of this year.

Mr. Wittmann called the votes "largely meaningless" and soon to be forgotten. "The only thing that matters is whether there is progress on the ground in Iraq," he says.

Indeed, even as war supporters had been feeling better lately after the assassination of terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and the completion of Iraq's unity government – capped by President Bush's triumphal visit to Iraq last week – the negative headlines have also continued apace. Four US marines were killed in Iraq's Anbar Province on Tuesday, and seven US marines and a Navy man have been charged in connection with the death of an Iraqi man.

But the war for hearts and minds back in the US, heading into the crucial fall congressional elections, remains fierce. And even as the mood among political activists has fluctuated, depending on news events and how each party has played the war, public opinion has remained fairly even.

For the past couple of years, the Pew Research Center has found that roughly half the American public thinks the US made the right decision in using military force against Iraq. In its latest survey, taken June 14-19, that figure was 49 percent, with 44 percent calling it the wrong decision.

On the specific issue of a timetable for withdrawal, Gallup has posed several scenarios and found little shift in opinion between November 2005 and this month: Now, 17 percent support "withdraw immediately," compared with 19 percent last November. Thirty-two percent now support "withdraw in 12 months' time" compared with 33 percent last November. The most popular position – "withdraw, take as many years as needed" – got 42 percent of the public now, compared with 38 percent last November. The option "send more troops" got 6 percent Thursday, down one point from November.

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