As some of you may remember, I was really hot under the collar for the way the Dems caved in the showdown with Bush on Iraq War Occupation funding. I felt that it would be playing politics to allow this to go on so they can continue to point the finger at Bush and Co. (and rightfully so) over the war. However, my problem with this strategy is that, at least, dozens of U.S. soldiers and hundreds, if not thousands, of innocent Iraqis will die in the process.

However, one thing that I wondered was if the Republicans would take this window to score some political points by bucking the President to change direction on the war. You see, the magical September date for which Gen. David Petraeus is supposed to report on the progress of the surge also marks the time frame where the 2008 election cycle officially heats up. Many Republican representatives and senators are facing tough political challenges as they are tied to a president whose approval ratings are in the high 20’s, a deteriorating situation in the Middle East as a whole, a rise in terrorism, an economy at home that only seems to benefit the most wealthy of Americans and, on top of that, soldiers losing their lives for a war without justification or purpose.

No, if you are fighting for your political life or the life of your political party and the biggest roadblock is a president of your own party, what would you do?

Maybe this is why Senators George Voinovich (R-OH) and Dick Lugar (R-IN) are now calling for U.S. troop withdrawls from Iraq. Yes, two members from the party that brought us such catchy phrases as “cut and run” and the party that accused those who called for similar measures of everything from not supporting the troops to advocating surrender to siding with the enemy are now seeing that continuing to support this policy is nothing short of political suicide.

Looming in all this is that, this September, there may be an announcement that, instead of actually looking to wrap things up, the administration may actually announce that they are extending the surge, possibly using the 9/11 anniversary to do so. Of course, this would be a bad move but, given the gullibility (or delusion) of a growing number of American who actually believe that there was some link between Saddam Hussein and the 9/11 plot, who knows what will happen.

But, back to the point. The Republicans may take this summer to actually seize the moment to challenge the president on troop withdrawals and, if that caucus has the momentum, the Democrats will have to follow. I mean, why would they then block the efforts to get the troops out of Iraq when that was THE reason they were voted in the first place. The scenario would then play out that the Republicans showed leadership on the war (history be damned) and the Democrats, once again, look weak for not posing a strong enough challenge to the President, particularly when they are the party in the majority.

It’s not without precedent. The Democrats challenged Lyndon Johnson on the Vietnam War, which caused him to not seek a second term in office. Of course, we ended up with Richard Nixon in the White House but, that’s another story.

The fact is that the Dems better do something fast on this war or their majority in the Congress may be very short-lived.

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