It seems the Democrats which had have had a hard time getting a handle on an effective anti-Bush strategy are sensing that this increasingly messy situation is opening a huge chink in his heretofore impervious “It’s for national security” armor.
As the Iraq situation looks more and more like a messy, deadly and extremely costly long term morass, and Bush looks increasingly out of his depth foreign policy wise will this hammer the GOP at the polls or not or will the national security card still trump the competing arguments?
Iraq almost has to improve, we’re starting from virtual chaos. Lowering the bar has already been achieved in spades.
The erosion of confidence is another matter. Assuming that the electorate has not undergone any dramatic changes, the Apathy Party holds all the cards.
I believe that Bush will get some political upside from the “national security” issue in this next election. How much, I don’t know. But if there are no more big terrorist attacks, that upside will disapear in the next election cycle (obviously not an issue for Bush, but an issue for other GOP candidates). The American public will largely have a short memory of 9/11 and get complacent. The Iraq situation will be a problem if there are still regular killings of US soldiers and/or the political situation is Iraq is seen to be in chaos.
I don’t see car bombs as a big issue, surprisingly, Col. I see the big issue here is that insurgents from out of the area (See Dear Raed) come in, shoot, and then our soldiers drive around shooting up innocent people for a while. Car bombs will piss off the locals, while what they’re doing now will make them mad at the US.
Not that I don’t see them happening, I’m saying it will not be a worse thing for us than what is happening now.
Plus, it’ll cut down on the fanatics. Always a good thing. Not to mention cars can’t infiltrate as well.
… Wait, had a thought… it was somewhere. Oh, yes. I’m hearing, Raed again, that there’s like five-six groups doing this, too. So… could get interesting.