The Stench of Opportunism

Someone needs to explain to Hillary Clinton: Leaders don't get "do-overs" -- of the Iraq War or anything else.

As it is, her positions have been all over the map, obviously much less as a result of any principled effort to secure America's national security than to forward her own political ambitions.

This "do-over" effort is just more of the same. The problem that Hillary, like the rest of the Democrats, doesn't seem to understand is that a unilateral retreat from Iraq isn't going to solve anything. What happens when a real civil war breaks out, and Saudi Arabia comes in to protect the Sunnis, Iran the Shiites, and Turkey gets interested in the north? What happens when our terrorist foes are emboldened, believing our retreat signals the truth of Osama bin Laden's assessment of the West as weak, decadent, fat, lazy and doomed? What happens when Iraq becomes an Al Qaeda base like Afghanistan used to be -- but with plenty of oil money to subsidize terrorist plots?

Once the Democrats have responsible answers for these questions, then they can talk about do-overs. Until then, ironically, after condemning President Bush for supposedly failing to plan for a post-war Iraq, they're making the same mistake -- taking into account not at all the dangers a post-withdrawal Iraq would create.