Calling for more patience for the president's policy in Iraq, Sen. Joe Lieberman said Thursday that the "surge" has the enemy "on the run."
We're not sure which enemy Lieberman had in mind: the enemy who killed five American soldiers and wounded seven more in a coordinated attack in southern Baghdad Thursday, or the enemy who planted a car bomb in London this morning.
We bring up the attempted bombing in London because that's just the sort of thing the Iraq war was supposed to be preventing, at least according to Joe Lieberman circa 2006. Amid news of a foiled plot to hijack jetliners and fly them into the United States, Lieberman said then: "If we just pick up like Ned Lamont wants us to do, get out [of Iraq] by a date certain, it will be taken as a tremendous victory by the same people who wanted to blow up these planes in this plot hatched in England. It will strengthen them and they will strike again."
As it turns out, we stayed in Iraq, and the enemy -- all the enemies -- still seems to be plenty emboldened to strike again. While British officials were able to defuse the car bomb near Piccadilly Circus before it exploded, the attack in Iraq killed five U.S. soldiers and wounded seven more. The deaths brought the U.S. death toll in Iraq to 3,576, and the last three months have been the deadliest quarter for U.S. troops since the war began more than four years ago.
We're don't know what Lieberman will be doing today while he's busy being patient -- many senators are already on their way home for the Fourth of July break -- but two of his former colleagues in the Democratic Party will apparently be trying, again, to do something to bring the war in Iraq to an end.
As the Politico reports, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi plan to announce a new "coordinated effort" to force more war-related votes in July. On the menu: a withdrawal plan or two offered as amendments to the Defense authorization bill in the Senate, a new timetable bill in the House, and a vote, in the House at least, on a plan to repeal the 2002 resolution that authorized the use of force in Iraq.
A unidentified Democratic aide tells the Politico: "We just can't leave American soldiers out there dying and not do anything."
No, we can't. But Joe Lieberman can.
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