The Success of the Kitchen Sink Strategy

This is pretty much exactly what I've been saying all along about the most effective strategy to end our involvement in occupying Iraq.

Precisely. A lot of people were pretty upset at the beginning of this Congress by what seemed like the Democrats' fecklessness. I was one of them. And I can remember at least 336,298 segments of The Daily Show dedicated to lambasting the "non-binding resolution" "expressing disapproval".

But now I've come to believe that their strategy is the only one that will work. Effectively, they've had three choices. The first I supposed, would have been to do nothing. But that was obviously a non-starter, given all the reasons Democrats were elected in the first place. The second option would have been for the leadership to, from day one, stand behind strong bills. Bills that, in their substance, would have put an end to this mess. (Bills like Russell Feingold's, for instance.) It's frustrating, but those bills don't pass. And they don't get the Gordon Smiths and Chuck Hagels of the world on to your side.

So instead, they picked a third strategy: Keep hacking away. Make Republicans vote no. Make them say, "I want this war to continue." Make them say, with a straight face, "I want the president in charge." Make them answer to reporters and constituents. These people don't have epiphanies. They will not go from a pro-war position to Feingold's position over night. But they will ultimately be nudged, as they have been, into supporting incremental improvements like dates-certain. Then it's up to the president to veto those bills, alienating himself from members of his own party and from the public at large.

If you keep making Republicans vote against the American people, eventually the ones who want to keep their job will have little choice but to vote yes. In the Senate we went from 13 votes for a timetable to 50 in a matter of months, and a de facto 60, since the Republicans won't filibuster. Now Bush is on his own, and the Democrats are pushing him to move forward. This is what I was worried most about but it appears that they're standing strong:

WASHINGTON - Congressional Democrats are showing no signs of backing down on their rebuke of the Iraq war, insisting President Bush will have to accept some sort of legislative timetable in exchange for the billions of dollars needed to fund the war.

"We would hope that the president understands how serious we are," said Majority Leader Harry Reid (news, bio, voting record), D-Nev., after the Senate voted to uphold a proposal in a war spending bill calling for the troop withdrawal [...]

"Members of Congress need to stop making political statements, start providing vital funds for our troops and get a bill to my desk that I can sign into law," Bush was expected to say in a speech at the National Cattlemen's Beef Association meeting in Washington. Excerpts were released in advance by the White House. "If Congress fails to pass a bill to fund our troops on the front lines, the American people will know who to hold responsible."

But Reid and other Democrats say they won't back down.

"Rather than making all the threats that he has, let's work with him and see if he can give us some ideas how we can satisfy the wishes of a majority of the Senate, the majority of the House and move forward," Reid said.

The Democrats have an easier argument to make here. They've provided the funds. If the President vetoes, he's cutting off funds for the troops. And I expect the Democrats to make that point loudly.

Ultimately this is the beginning of the end in Iraq, which doesn't look from the outside all that different as the end of the beginning. The kitchen sink strategy is working, but still needs continued effort and support.