Fareed Zakaria is Starting To "Get It"

Longtime readers of this blog know that I am not a great fan of Fareed Zakaria, but he is one of the prominent voices of the Washington journalistic establishment and his opinion counts for something, especially in Democrat circles. It is to his credit that he takes the Democrats to task, however gently, for the gross irresponsibility of their recent positions and public statements. He writes:

The rising clamor in Washington to get out of Iraq may be right or may be wrong, but one thing is certain: its timing has little to do with events in that country. Iraq today is no worse off than it was three months ago, or a year ago. Nor has there been a sudden spike in the numbers of American troops being killed. In fact, in some ways things have improved recently. What's driving this debate, however, are events in America. President Bush's approval rating has plummeted, battered by Iraq but also by Hurricane Katrina. The Democrats, sensing weakness, are trying to draw blood. But the result is a debate that is oddly timed. Iraq is in the midst of full-scale political campaigning and is three weeks from a crucial election, the first in which there will be large-scale Sunni participation. This will also be the first election to yield a government with real—and lasting—powers. (It will have a four-year term, compared with the last two governments, which had six months each.)

Why and how we got into this war are important questions. And the administration's hands are not clean. But the paramount question right now should not be "What did we do about Iraq three years ago?" It should be "What should we do about Iraq today?" And on this topic, the administration has finally been providing some smart answers. Condoleezza Rice, who is now in control of Iraq policy in a way no one has been, has spearheaded a political-military strategy for Iraq that is sophisticated and workable.

Read the whole thing here.

Of course Zakaria has to throw a few bones to the Democrats. Their protest, he argues, might be useful in concentrating the minds of Iraqi politicians, and he speaks as though the current policies were at least in part a response to pressure from the Democrats in Congress. Those, however are far-fetched ideas simply thrown in as a salve to Democrat sensibilities.

His main point is devastating. Democrats and left of center journalists have demonstarted an amazing level of irresponsibility in issuing demands for withdrawal, timetables, and exit strategies at this crucial time. And the damage is not just to the Iraqi people and our men and women engaged there, or to the Presidency and the Republican Party. Demands for withdrawal place those figures within the Democratic Party who wish to gain recognition as responsible national leaders in a very difficult predicament. Note, for instance, the tortured twisting and turnings of Hillary Clinton on the matter. Oh, how I long for the emergence of responsible and effective leadership in the Democratic Party, but the few responsible voices that have emerged, have to this date been marginalized.

I salute Zakaria who along with Joe Lieberman is one of the few voices of reason to emerge from the Democrat side of the debate. Perhaps he is not so much of a shill for the Democrat establishment as I once thought him to be.