The new Democratic withdrawal plans beg a question: why now and not two months ago?

I do not mean this in a self-righteous or petty implication, but rather with a rhetorical tone. I believe I know the reason.

The Mid East is a land where bad things have happened, where they are happening, and where it is logical to believe they will continue to happen, whether or not events go generally our way. It is a simple fact that bad things happen in war.

We live in an age globally defined by violence in the Mid East. We live in an age nationally defined by a legacy of political partisanship. Many in both parties believe that the ultimate outcome of Iraq will be failure; whatever outcome finally emerges, it will undeniably be a violent one. The media, eager for news, will report on the violence, and whatever policy precedes the next big wave will be decried as wrongheaded folly. Both parties know this.

As a result, neither is particularly eager to make initiatives in Iraq. That’s why it took two months for the Democrats to begin to really address what they claim (with considerable credibility) was the issue that they had been elected last year to solve. It is why Bush’s plan got only lukewarm support among an ununanimous bloc of his own party. We have been watching essentially a Mexican standoff that has kept a disappointing status quo from changing, in the fear that change will not be reform and its failure will tarnish the political fortune of its authors.

It will be interesting to see how the three Democratic plans will be popularly received. Although they seem diametrically opposed to Bush’s surge, they share some things in common: they are belated efforts, their prospects of success are uncertain, and if adopted their authors will be blamed in the future for the inevitable violence which will come.