Bush: Too early to 'peak'
at his results

"Now is the winter of our discontent / Made glorious summer by this sun of York." Thus does Shakespeare's Duke of Gloucester, soon to be King Richard III, sum up the striking improvement in his family's fortunes.

America's Democrats could be forgiven for feeling that their party's prospects have undergone an equally beneficial revolution. To be sure, the party's situation remains, at the moment, almost unrelievedly gloomy. At the federal level, it controls absolutely nothing – not the White House, not the Senate, not the House of Representatives, and it is currently watching its old crony, the Supreme Court, slide perceptibly into Republican hands. At the state level, almost all the major governorships – including those of such former Democratic bastions as New York, California and Massachusetts – are held by Republicans. As for the metropolises, where Democrats traditionally flourish, their crown jewel, New York City, has had Republican mayors for the last 12 years. Democrats, quite literally, have almost nowhere to go but up.

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Anyone surveying the national political scene today must admit that "up" is exactly where the Democrats may be poised to go. The reason can be summed up in one word: Iraq.

Conventional wisdom has it that, when they go into the voting booths, Americans "vote their pocketbooks." If that were always true, Republicans today would have reason to feel reasonably confident about the congressional elections coming up in 2006, and the presidential contest looming in 2008. The economy is in good shape, despite all the predictions of disaster ahead, and President Bush is certainly entitled to the lion's share of the credit.

Moreover, our invasion of Afghanistan, including the toppling of its Taliban regime after Sept. 11, was a distinct success. And our swift invasion of Iraq and the deposing of Saddam Hussein simply added to the Bush reputation for magic. Americans love short, successful wars, and, as a result, the president's approval ratings soared.

But in the past two years things have – let us be gentle about it – not gone quite as expected. Iraq's terrorist underground has survived, and inflicted grim and steady casualties on both American forces and the Iraqis who have dared to cooperate with them. American casualties have been small by comparison with almost any other war in which we have been engaged in the past century, but that very fact has enabled the Democrats and their allies in the media to focus attention on almost every individual death – something that simply wasn't possible amid the far greater bloodletting of Vietnam or Korea, let alone World Wars I and II.

That, and such surprises as the failure to find WMDs in Iraq, have thoroughly spoiled the appetite of most Americans for this war, and the consequence is grimly visible in the polls, which show Bush's approval ratings at an all-time low. No wonder the Democrats feel buoyant.

But it seems possible that the Democrats are peaking far too soon. Even the congressional elections are nearly 15 months away. And George W. Bush is going to be president for another three years, five months. Even the election to replace him won't be held for well over three years. If, as the Democrats naturally like to assume, things in Iraq continue to go badly for the administration right across those long stretches of time, Bush will reap the whirlwind, and the Democrats will be the beneficiaries – no doubt about that. But, as the old saying goes, "a week is an eternity in politics." If American forces gradually strangle the Iraqi insurgency, and the nascent government there puts down roots and slowly brings the country under its control, Bush's policy will look far wiser, and ultimately triumphant. And the American people will recognize this, and credit him accordingly.

Note: I said "If." Everything depends on future developments. Bush is not a man for turning, and he will not abandon Iraq. He will therefore go down in history either as the man who stood up to the terrorists and transformed the Middle East, or as an abject failure. The Democrats' future, along with much else, depends on which it is to be.