BUSH AND THE COPPERHEADS

What if we win in Iraq?  If the thought makes you break out in a cold sweat, you could be a Democrat candidate for president.

Democrat leaders in Congress have cut and run from the "slow bleed" strategy (to hamstring the war effort in Iraq through restrictive amendments on the defense appropriations bill) devised by Rep. "Surrender John" Murtha.

But sabotaging the war effort is still foremost on the Democrat agenda.  Sen. "Slow Joe" Biden of Delaware wants to repeal the 2002 authorization to go to war in Iraq (for which Sen. Biden had voted).

Democrats have invested so much political capital in an American defeat that their electoral prospects in 2008 could be devastated if we win.

And win we very well may.  The troop surge the Democrats are trying to stop has already produced a sharp decline in the number of bullet-riddled bodies found in the streets of Baghdad, the AP reported this week (2/27). 

"Since the crackdown was formally launched Feb. 14, a total of 164 bodies have been found in the capital as of Monday, according to AP figures.  The AP count showed that 390 bodies were discovered in the same period in January," the AP said.

"I spoke to my father in Baghdad, and he said the street is very impressed by the operation and receiving much cooperation from the people," said Haider Ajina, an Iraqi-American Web logger who is Shia. 

"The best part remains the return of displaced families to their homes," wrote the Iraqi Web logger Mohammed Fadhil, a Sunni.  "More than 600 families have returned so far."

I'm flabbergasted that the AP would report such good news.  Yet I'm equally flabbergasted that it took the president until last December to realize that protecting the Iraqi population is the key to success.  Recognition of the obvious has come awfully late. 

But not too late, thinks Donald Stoker, who teaches strategy at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterrey, California.  Most insurgencies fail, and the insurgents in Iraq lack the ingredients of the few successful insurgencies of the 20th Century, Prof. Stoker said.

Nearly 3,400 service members have been killed in Iraq and Afghanistan.  Each of these deaths is a tragedy.  But our combat deaths have been fewer than the number of troops lost during the Clinton administration.  (During the Clinton years, an average of 939 personnel died each year, mostly in accidents.  Since 2003, an average of 800 troops have died each year in Iraq.)

The Bush administration's mistakes doubtless have prolonged the war.  But our perception of failure may be more the product of ignorance and impatience than of the realities on the ground.  Typically, it takes 8-11 years to defeat an insurgency, Prof. Stoker said.  We've been in Iraq for less than four.

And the passage of time is required for the adjustments in attitude which seem to be taking place among Iraqis.  Sunnis had to be disabused of the notion they could continue to lord it over the majority Shia and the Kurds.  And Sunnis had to experience the ugliness of al Qaeda rule in Fallujah and Tal Afar before public opinion among them turned decisively against the terror group.

There've been major political gains in recent months.  Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki no longer is using linguini for a spine.  The Iraqi parliament has agreed on an oil revenue sharing plan.  The discovery of major oil deposits in Anbar should spur Sunni desires for peace.

American history has a grave lesson for the Democrats.  They need to be reminded that their Democrat Party clamored for a U.S. defeat during the Civil War. 

Back then, the leaders of their party called themselves "Peace Democrats," who urged Union soldiers to desert and hated Abraham Lincoln as much as their political descendants hate George Bush today.  They were confident of capturing the White House in 1864.

Then Sherman captured Atlanta two months before the 1864 elections.  The "Copperheads," as the Republicans called the Democrats after a venomous snake, got creamed by the voters who thought victory was nigh.  And it was: at Appomattox five months later (April 9, 1865).

President Bush may have his Atlanta before the primaries begin. 

If the war is going badly in the fall of 2008, Republicans are toast.  So why would Democrats embrace now the one political posture that could bite them in the tuchis?

We got a clue this week. On Tuesday (2/27) a suicide bomber attacked Bagram Air Force Base in Afghanistan.  Taliban spokesmen said their target was Vice President Dick Cheney, who was visiting the base.  Many posters at popular left wing websites such as Daily Kos and MoveOn.org expressed regret that Mr. Cheney had not been killed.

Most Democrats share the revulsion of other Americans at the attempt to assassinate the vice president.  But unhinged modern-day Copperheads may dominate in early primaries and caucuses, which typically draw less than 30 percent of registered voters, so Democrat presidential candidates are pandering to them. 

But the candidate who appeals most to moonbats in the spring may be radioactive in the fall.  Ask "Copperhead Ned" Lamont of Connecticut.  The guy who defeated him last November, Joe Lieberman, now holds the balance of power in the Senate.