The American Spectator

Political Hay

Last week, when key findings of the National Intelligence Estimate were released reporting that al Qaeda was thriving, Democratic candidates seized on the opportunity to declare President Bush's strategy for fighting terrorism a dismal failure.

John Edwards fired out a statement calling the NIE "proof positive that George Bush's 'Global War on Terror' Doctrine is more of a bumper sticker than a strategy to eliminate terrorism." He added that "the next president will need a bold new strategy that will attack the root causes of terrorism, rather than wait for the problem to get worse."

Not to be left out of the party, Barack Obama declared: "It is deeply troubling that more that [sic] nearly six years after 9/11, al Qaeda maintains a safe haven, an intact leadership, and the capability to plan further attacks. It is time to act to correct those mistakes, and the first step is to get out of Iraq, because you can't win a war when you're on the wrong battlefield."

The release did not include a second step -- i.e. a part about how Obama proposes to eliminate terrorist groups, or to pursue them in Afghanistan and Pakistan once U.S. troops leave Iraq.

For several years, Democrats have accused the Bush administration of using the War on Terror as a pretext for invading Iraq. Now, Democrats are using withdrawal from Iraq as a pretext for abandoning the War on Terror.

While leading Democrats make a lot of noise arguing that leaving Iraq is a necessary precondition to fight the "real" War on Terror, they are rather quiet when it comes to explaining how they would actually go about fighting al Qaeda once they extricate us from Iraq.

The American Spectator placed a series of calls to the campaigns of Obama, Edwards, and Hillary Clinton to ask what their strategies were for fighting terrorism once U.S. troops leave Iraq, and what they think we should do about Pakistan now that the NIE said al Qaeda leaders were based there. The press offices of the campaigns did not answer multiple requests for such information.

To the extent that Democrats have discussed fighting terrorism, their plans have been gathering dust while their speeches, debate appearances, and town hall meetings are dominated by other matters, because the primary voters they are competing for simply do not think that the threat of terrorism is a big deal.

Rudy Giuliani has made an issue out of the fact that the phrase "Islamic terrorist" has not been used in any of the Democratic debates. But Giuliani is expecting far too much from the Democrats. If you were to drop his modifier and scour the transcript of Monday's YouTube debate, you would not even find the word "terrorist" mentioned either by the candidates or the citizen questioners.

The issue of terrorism did come up if you define it more broadly, but once again it was only in the context of withdrawal from Iraq. At one point during the debate, Obama said one of the reasons he was against the Iraq War all along was that "it would distract us from the War on Terror." And Clinton, explaining her opposition to sending ground forces into Darfur, said, "We've got to figure out what we're doing in Iraq, where our troops are stretched thin, and Afghanistan, where we're losing the fight to al Qaeda and bin Laden."

The issues section of Clinton's website lists ten topics, including "Strengthening the Middle Class," "Providing Affordable and Accessible Healthcare," "Supporting Parents and Caring for Children," and, of course, "Ending the War in Iraq."

p>While fighting terrorism is not important enough to the Clinton campaign to earn its own category, the issue of terrorism does get mentioned in a section called "Restoring America's Standing in the World," but only in it's standard Democratic context: br> /p> blockquote>Senator Clinton takes very seriously the threats we face from terrorism. She believes President Bush's singular focus on Iraq has distracted him from waging the war on terror effectively and emboldened our enemies. As president, she will be tough and smart in combating terrorism.

topics:
Foreign Policy, Education, Health Care, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Islam, Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, NATO, North Korea