After The Veto

Chris Bowers lays out the Democratic options now that the course has pretty much been set for a veto showdown on the Iraq appropriation.

So, once the veto comes, what is the plan? Do we:

1. Engage in a standoff with Bush, saying that he either gets this bill or none at all. This is the showdown tactic, and it would require us to not lose a single vote from either our House or Senate caucuses. Or, at least holding together 41 Dems in the Senate.

2. Try to work out a compromise with Bush somewhere between this bill and a blank check. This is the "get anything you can" strategy, but keep in mind that the current bill is already compromised.

3. Say that we tried to end the war, but Bush and Republicans wouldn't let us, and then give them a blank check. This is the "we tried, but its on your shoulders now strategy." The obvious danger here is much of the country might view us as weak, and failures when it comes to stopping Bush on Iraq. Not to mention that it, you know, funds the war without any restrictions.

4. Something else?

I'm very down for number one, and if the Democrats can set the rhetorical agenda I don't see how they can lose; the problem is that they've proven inept at setting the rhetorical agenda. I've said time and again that if Bush vetoes the appropriation, he would be cutting off funding to the troops in harm's way. All they have to do is say this clearly and forcefully, and make the vote about the separation of powers, ultimately. "Congress did its duty; the President must now do his."

The war isn't about to get any better. Barry McCaffrey spelled it out in the Washington Post today. This is an intractable conflict and the American people know it. There's no amount of wheedling or cajoling that could change these facts.

These are the facts.

Iraq is ripped by a low grade civil war which has worsened to catastrophic levels with as many as 3000 citizens murdered per month. The population is in despair. Life in many of the urban areas is now desperate. A handful of foreign fighters (500+) --- and a couple of thousand Al Qaeda operatives incite open factional struggle through suicide bombings which target Shia holy places and innocent civilians. Thousands of attacks target US Military Forces (2900 IED’s) a month---primarily stand off attacks with IED’s, rockets, mortars, snipers, and mines from both Shia (EFP attacks are a primary casualty producer) ---and Sunni (85% of all attacks---80% of US deaths—16% of Iraqi population.)

Three million Iraqis are internally displaced or have fled the country to Syria and Jordan. The technical and educated elites are going into self-imposed exile---a huge brain drain that imperils the ability to govern. The Maliki government has little credibility among the Shia populations from which it emerged. It is despised by the Sunni as a Persian surrogate. It is believed untrustworthy and incompetent by the Kurds.

There is no function of government that operates effectively across the nation--- not health care, not justice, not education, not transportation, not labor and commerce, not electricity, not oil production. There is no province in the country in which the government has dominance. The government cannot spend its own money effectively. ($7.1 billion sits in New York banks.) No Iraqi government official, coalition soldier, diplomat, reporter, foreign NGO, nor contractor can walk the streets of Baghdad, nor Mosul, nor Kirkuk, nor Basra, nor Tikrit, nor Najaf, nor Ramadi---without heavily armed protection.

The police force is feared as a Shia militia in uniform which is responsible for thousands of extra-judicial killings. There is no effective nation-wide court system. There are in general almost no acceptable Iraqi penal institutions. The population is terrorized by rampant criminal gangs involved in kidnapping, extortion, robbery, rape, massive stealing of public property ---such as electrical lines, oil production material, government transportation, etc. (Saddam released 80,000 criminal prisoners.)

It's frankly immoral to sink more lives and treasure into such an impossible nightmare, especially when it risks breaking our Army and making us less prepared for other conflicts and ultimately less safe. Of course, everyone knows that you don't pull out an Army in a day, and you don't stop a war with one vote. But you can take a stand now, and offer up a bill that has a specific timeline, a bill you know Bush can't support, and dare him to take it or leave it. I don't see what the Democrats would have to lose from that. They've already set a timeline and sustained whatever political fallout comes out of that. The American public is overwhelmingly on their side; the only people who aren't wouldn't vote for Democrats anyway, or Lieber-Dems who lie with impunity every time they talk about Iraq.

Whether the Democrats will be tough enough to hold the line on this is another question. Matt Taibbi is skeptical.

In my visits to Washington in the past few months I've heard different stories from Democratic congressional aides about what the party's intentions are. Some say they think the leadership is just going to stall and pass a bunch of non-binding, symbolic, Kumbayah horseshit to help propel whoever the Democratic candidate is into the White House two years from now. Others claim with a straight face that all of these non-binding resolutions are only a start, that the strategy is to really end the war via a death-by-a-thousand-cuts type of legislative grind, with the leadership sending to the floor bill after bill after bill designed to eat away at either war policy or war funding. They claim that all of these votes are exercises in coalition-building, necessary steps to gathering the support needed to pass real biting measures later on.

But I'll believe that when I see it. Right now, it all looks too convenient. With Bush a thrashing, drowning lame-duck whose endorsement in '08 will almost certainly be political poison to whomever has the misfortune to earn it, Republicans like Hagel and Oregon Senator Gordon Smith are conspicuously free to break ranks and save themselves. Moreover, the Democratic measure is crafted in such a way that the Hagels and Smiths and Ben Nelsons of the world can safely get on a soapbox about the war without having to face accusations of depriving the troops of equipment and "what they need" to fight, which just so happens to be the leitmotif/preoccupation of the Rush/Hannity talk shows of late. While Rush and the rest of the radio monsters blast Nancy Pelosi and Hillary for being army-haters ("These people are not just against victory. They are against the military," sez Rush), Hagel et al can say that they voted for both a scheduled withdrawal and a $20 billion increase in war funding. That is called having one's cake and eating it too, and folks on the Hill love that kind of political diet. There's a reason why there are not many skinny Senators.

I share the skepticism but think that there is at least some room to take a stand right now. And at this point in the 21st century, with the power vested in the hands of the executive (too much) and the political theatrics being what they are (too loud), a death by a thousand cuts can really be the only possible death there is. We've actually seen dramatic moves in the House and Senate already that should not be discounted. The Senate is about to pass Kerry-Feingold, essentially; last year it got 13 votes. In another 3 months, does it get 60? 67?

There aren't any good answers here, but the obstinacy of the President will actually work in the Democrat's favor should they use it. He is incapable of winning an argument with the American people anymore. Progressives and the antiwar movement need to make sure he doesn't win it because the other side gets laryngitis.