During the protracted campaign season that ended in November, the GOP appeared unified behind the President's ability to defend the nation down to nearly every last member. As the situation in Iraq has continued to deteriorate placing added strain on the military, even some Republican leaders and leading conservative voices have joined the handful of mavericks in questioning the President's policies. The Los Angeles Times' Ronald Brownstein reports on this important story:

The strains on the volunteer military from the war in Iraq are now unsettling as many Republicans as Democrats — and exposing an enduring contradiction in President Bush's agenda.

Conservative defense analysts and GOP legislative leaders are raising alarms over the pressures that Iraq is imposing on the military, especially the part-time Army National Guard and Reserve. With growing urgency, these critics argue that the Pentagon is relying too heavily on the citizen-soldiers of the Guard and Reserve in Iraq because the administration has refused to enlarge the size of the full-time military enough to meet new demands.

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Most strikingly, House Majority Whip Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) this month urged an increase in the active military and condemned lengthy deployments that he said were compelling Guard and Reserve volunteers to effectively "serve in the permanent forces."

The GOP has been seen by most Americans as the party most able to defend the country at least since the 1972 election in which George McGovern ran substantially to the left of Richard Nixon on the war. As the effects of this administration's jingoistic policies become evident to the nation, however, it is entirely possible that people will begin to realize that invading multiple countries -- only to have to occupy them for many years -- actually makes the country less safe. If this indeed occurs -- and Brownstein's article seems to indicate that we're at least in the early stages of such a realization -- the right might become as fractured as the left following the Vietnam War, leading to a renaissance for the Democratic party.