"Exit Strategy" Is More Than A Whisper In Washington, With Lawmakers Speaking Out

This is from The New York Times:

With opinion polls showing a drop in support for the war, and a British memo asserting that the Bush administration had intended to go to war as early as the summer of 2002, the words "exit strategy" are being uttered by both Democrats and Republicans on Capitol Hill.

The political winds are starting to shift, and whether George Bush realizes it or not, he's going to have a big problem in his hands. Bush can't keep going on saying how the United States must keep fighting the terrorists or how we're slowly winning the war in the long run. Where's the proof that the U.S. is winning? In an Associated Press article released today, insurgents killed another six U.S. troops and a suicide car bomb slammed into a truck carrying Iraqi policemen near the Baghdad airport, killing eight and wounding 25. There are two sides to this story: The daily White House PR on how the U.S. is winning the global war on terrorism in Iraq, and the rising number of insurgent attacks and mounting U.S. casualties--now at 1,714 U.S. dead. This contradiction in reports has started a new bipartisan movement in Congress to consider how to extricate the U.S. out of Iraq. This is huge. A year ago, the country was split down the line between red states and blue states. Red State Republicans voted for Bush because they thought he did an excellent job in the war in Iraq and terrorism. Blue State Democrats voted against Bush because they thought the war was wrong. The 2004 election was about the war. Now, the war has changed. The insurgents have continued their attacks with impunity. The Downing Street Memos have revealed the Bush Administration's complete intent on going to war, fixing the intelligence to market the war, and have revealed the failure of the White House to seriously consider a detailed post-war strategy after invading Iraq. All of these stories have been politically damaging to Bush, causing opinion poll numbers regarding his job performance and his policies in Iraq to have dropped sharply. This reversal is allowing certain Republicans to consider different viewpoints--especially if the war continues to sour American public opinion in 2006, when the midterm elections take place. Congressional Republicans are questioning the exit strategy as a means to distance themselves away from the White House, and a possible voter backlash against the Republican Congressional and White House support for the the war. Democrats are only happy to get on the exit strategy bandwagon for it allows them to utilize their PR machine to sharply criticize President Bush on the war. And if the Democrats can take control of one or both houses of Congress, they can take control of the committees as a means to launch their on investigations into the Bush White House.

How far will this exit strategy questioning go will depend on two things. The first is obviously how bad will the situation in Iraq deteriorate by November 2006? If the situation in Iraq continues to go downhill, you can probably expect a regime change in Congress. The second question is whether control of Congress will change hands from Republicans to Democrats. If the Democrats do gain control, you can expect more talk of an exit strategy from Iraq, especially if the Democrats do start to investigate Bush's conduct of the war. Either way, the political winds are starting to shift.

Now how hard will the storm hit us?