The Week Ahead - Iraq and Ramallah

Nancy Pelosi (from her website)

The Democrats are putting pressure on U.S. President Bush just ahead of his much-anticipated new Iraq strategy. Following rumors that Bush will order a "surge" in U.S. troops, some key Democrats have come out charging. Earlier on CNN today, Senator Joseph Biden (D-Delaware) told Wolf Blitzer that he believed the administration could not admit defeat in Iraq, and that it was hoping to pass the mess on to the next president, who would then be responsible for "rescuing Americans from roof tops" (a reference to the fall of Saigon). Before that, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-California) and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nevada) sent an open letter to the President, in which they told Bush,

Surging forces is a strategy that you have already tried and that has already failed. Like many current and former military leaders, we believe that trying again would be a serious mistake. They, like us, believe there is no purely military solution in Iraq. There is only a political solution.

See our previous post on the idiocy of plans to increase the number of U.S. troops in Iraq. Will Bush bow to the pressure of the Democrats?

Meanwhile, the fallout from yesterday's IDF daytime raid in Ramallah has yet to be evaluated. Mubarak as well as the Palestinians reacted angrily. Russia made a special statement condemning the operation (Ha'aretz). Will this blow over or can we expect to see an escalation in Palestinian actions against Israel?