Columnist E.J. Dionne writes on Republican triumphalism following the American victory in Iraq:

They should enjoy their laughs while they can, because in democratic politics few victories are ever final. And the victory in Iraq has only forced to the forefront the pro-war camp's own divisions and contradictions. From the beginning, advocates of war advanced competing rationales for waging it. Some said the war was primarily about removing Saddam Hussein, others that its main purpose was to rid him of his dangerous weapons, still others that the war was a chance to change history by bringing democracy to Iraq and transforming the Middle East. The American public was always more certain about the first two goals than about the third, and for reasons rooted in common sense: Knocking over a dictator and taking his weapons was always going to be an easier job than revolutionizing a society and its politics. Already, as Jonathan Weisman and Mike Allen put it in The Post, senior officials in the Pentagon and the White House "are questioning the Bush administration's most ambitious, long-term plans for Iraq's reconstruction" and are pushing for a "quick exit" of American military forces.

Dionne is absolutely right about the cyclicality of political success. In 1994, President Clinton’s Health Care proposal went down in flames and Republicans rode to electoral victory under the leadership of Newt Gingrich. Just 2 years later association with that history professor turned house speaker was political poison.

This is clearly the Democrat’s great hope in Iraq. While I’m not going to make the vicious claim that Democrats are actively rooting for a bloody American failure in post-war Iraq, Dionne’s article does make it clear that they think their political fortunes can be resurrected by entering a legitimate debate over reconstruction.

Yet I wonder if the current Democratic predicament will be as easy to dig out of as Clinton’s in 1994. In that case, initial fortunes rose and fell because of the victory of one side over the other in a legitimate political debate. What was important, however, was that both sides presented workable policies for the American people to choose between. Therefore, when the tied turned against the Republicans due to Gingrich’s perceived excesses, Clinton – with a deft move to the right – was a fully palatable alternative.

What is unique about Iraq, however, and what could cause Democrats far more harm than they are willing to admit, is that most of the anti-war left simply did not present a workable alternative to Bush’s strategy. Once France declared its intention to veto any military action the fallacy of “working through the UN” was exposed. Furthermore, as increasing evidence of Saddam’s brutality emerged as our troops moved though Iraq, voters were reminded of the left’s failure to present any plan to save these people. Therefore, even if the rebuilding of Iraq turns unpopular, I wonder if the American people will truly consider the majority of Democrats – this doesn’t include Lieberman and Edwards, obviously – reasonable alternatives given the events of the past six months.

The Democratic Party, or at least its left wing, may be forced into political exile until the war on terror is fully won. During the last 20 years of the Cold War, the post-Vietnam Democratic Party was at a serious disadvantage to Republicans in Presidential elections simply because a large number of voters did not trust them to actively confront the Soviet threat. It was only once this danger was lifted – the “End of History,” to use Fukuyama’s term – that Democrats could run under the slogan “it’s the economy, stupid.” We may be in a similar situation today. While Democrat’s were hawkish during the early stages of the War on Terror, Iraq may have so tainted voters’ view of their ability to formulate a responsible foreign policy as to place them at a permanent disadvantage until the threat from Islamic Fundamentalism is eliminated once and for all.