Domenici’s Burka

Senator Pete Domenici acts like he is in one of those seats Harry Reid gloated about gaining by politicizing the war in Iraq. Panicking, Domenici has donned the burkha of a “New U.S. Military Strategy” for Iraq and is attempting to sneak out the back door. When I took a peak behind his burkha, however, it turns out his “new” military strategy looks a lot like the old. From Domenici’s press release:

I do not support an immediate withdrawal from Iraq or a reduction in funding for our troops. But I do support a new strategy that will move our troops out of combat operations and on the path to coming home.

Compare this with the goals of those troops, as articulated by Michael Yon, an independent writer currently embedded with the troops in Iraq:

Most Iraqis I talk with acknowledge that if it was ever about the oil, it’s not now. Not mostly anyway. It clearly would have been cheaper just to buy the oil or invade somewhere easier that has more. Similarly, most Iraqis seem now to realize that we really don’t want to stay here, and that many of us can’t wait to get back home. They realize that we are not resolved to stay, but are impatient to drive down to Kuwait and sail away. And when they consider the Americans who actually deal with Iraqis every day, the Iraqis can no longer deny that we really do want them to succeed. But we want them to succeed without us. We want to see their streets are clean and safe, their grass is green, and their birds are singing. We want to see that on television. Not in person. We don’t want to be here. We tell them that every day. It finally has settled in that we are telling the truth.

The Senator’s strategy pretty much matches the current plan – except the part where Yon states “we want them [Iraqis] to succeed without us.” Yon’s use of the word “we” notes the sentiment of the American troops, putting their life on the line, not self-serving U.S. Senators trying to save their Senate hides.