The long knives

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There's barely more than a week to go before Army Gen. David Petraeus arrives in Washington with his eagerly awaited assessment of progress in Iraq, and the Democrats are making their own war strategy abundantly clear. Gen. Petraeus must be portrayed as a White House stooge and the men and women risking their lives to defeat jihadists in Iraq but his innocent lackeys. The propagandists mean to demoralize the troops by declaring their efforts doomed to failure, and even if they don't fail their substantial military successes don't amount to much.

The most disgraceful player so far is Sen. Charles Schumer of New York, chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, who in speech ridiculed as "desperate" the successful strategy implemented by Gen. Petraeus, which has dramatically reduced violence in Anbar province and saved both American and Iraqi lives. The alliance between the U.S. military and Sunni tribesmen has encouraged the Sunnis to stand against al Qaeda. "Are we placing our faith in the future of Iraq in the hands of some warlords?" asked Mr. Schumer with a sour verbal sneer. "Some tribal leaders who at the moment dislike al Qaeda more than they dislike us? Is this the vaunted clarion cry for democracy in the Middle East that the President announced when he started the build-up in Iraq?... This is a policy of desperation."

Only a poisonous partisan — or someone ignorant of history and geopolitical reality — could say something like that. Using the Schumer standard, FDR and Churchill were wrong to form an alliance with Soviet dictator Josef Stalin because he was an evil man who didn't share our regard for "democracy." The World War II leaders of the West rightly judged that Hitler and the Axis powers posed a greater threat to U.S. interests than Stalin at the time — hence the decision to ally the United States and Britain with the Soviet Communists. No one now pretends that Sunni tribesmen have very much in common with Thomas Jefferson or James Madison. But only fools would take Mr. Schumer's advice to give the back of the hand to the Arab Muslims who are willing to join the fight against our mortal enemy.

Mr. Schumer's remarks are but step one in the latest Democratic initiative to "support the troops." S.A. Miller of The Washington Times reported yesterday that Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin and House Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee boss Chris Van Hollen seek to discredit Gen. Petraeus' findings before he reports them, depicting him as a White House mouthpiece who can't be trusted. Many prominent Democrats are heavily invested in an American defeat in Iraq, and Gen. Petraeus stands in their way. The debate is about to get ugly.