Stupid Hold Tricks

Robert Menendez has been a pretty sharp Senator, and I don't regret making calls for him in 2006. I do regret him falling back on failed tropes of the past to not only frustrate a new era of US-Cuba policy, but to inexplicably stop dedicated professionals from doing their jobs protecting the planet from pollution and climate change.

Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ), a strong supporter of the U.S. trade embargo against Cuba, is launching a full-on battle this week to remove several provisions from the 2009 government spending bill that would open a small crack in the slammed door of relations with Havana.

Menendez fired a broadside at the Obama administration yesterday for backing a provision buried in the $410 billion spending bill, which must become law by next week in order to keep the government running. The New Jersey senator, a Cuban-American, objects to language in the bill that would allow Cuban-Americans to visit relatives on the island once a year and end limits on the sale of American food and medicines in Cuba. [...]

The WaPo reports today that the senator has held up two Obama science nominees in an attempt to twist the arms of his fellow Dems.

First of all, Menendez is hopelessly behind the times. The majority of his fellow Cuban-Americans SUPPORT lifting the travel ban, because they understand that the policy of isolation has completely failed. So do wild-eyed liberals on foreign policy like Richard Lugar. But worse, Menendez is taking his temper tantrum out on two very qualified candidates who have nothing to do with this spat.

But Menendez isn't just making his case to continue with a failed policy, he's now blocking two White House nominees -- Obama's choices to be the head of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and the head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration -- to get the senators' attention on his Cuba-related concerns.

So, to summarize, Menendez supports Obama's nominees, but won't let the Senate vote on them until after he's done complaining about a subtle change in a foreign policy that hasn't worked after more than five decades of attempts.

Markos and Kevin Drum have more. The worst part of this is that you have a liberal Democrat abusing the ridiculous Senate holds process, which encourages others to do the same:

And he's not alone. It seems that multiple anonymous senators are now holding up Holdren and Lubchenco's nominations, as Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) told CQ:

"It's infuriating," said Rockefeller, who backs Holdren and Lubchenco's hiring. "They're brilliant scientists."

Science advocates said they are frustrated by the blocking of administration officials they argue are needed now more than ever. The holdup could slow timely science and environmental policy work between Congress and the administration, particularly the spending of roughly $21.5 billion dedicated to science in the economic recovery package.

Thanks a lot, Sen. Menendez. I hope it's worth it.

(Hey, maybe he and Fidel Castro can do a Bloggingheads about it...)

The Iraqi Security Forces

This is really the problem in Iraq.



We are simply not getting the Iraqi security forces in a position where they can provide for their own security. And really, we never will. The chart shows minor progress over the last several years, particularly in creating independent security teams.

So four years into this thing, how are we doing in getting Iraqi army units up to speed? Answer: at the beginning of the year we had 15 Level 1 (fully independent) units. Today we have 12. Level 2 units have gone from 78 to 83. Some progress.

We don't even know if we WANT to arm and train these security forces, which we've frequently seen can turn sectarian and run the risk of arming militias who will eventually take up those arms against their American trainers and their ethnic opponents. We go back and forth with mission shifts. Now we're back to training the Iraqi forces. And it's not working.

All of this points to the fact, as I've heard again and again and again, that if it remains true that the day American troops leave Iraq, the country will collapse, no matter how long we stay, then we might as well leave now, because all you're doing is wasting lives and treasure. And since four years have passed with that exact same dynamic in place, and the Iraqi security forces have essentially stagnated in the same position, I believe a gradual withdrawal within 6-9 months is the least worst option.

And let's be completely clear: David Petraeus was in charge of training the Iraqi security forces. He was very upbeat and positive about them 3 years ago. And it simply cannot be the case that ONLY the bombing of the Golden Dome in Samarra derailed that process. The longtime wingnut mantra on this war is that things were going just perfectly in early February 2006 until that bombing. This is months after the "last throes" comment, months after Cindy Sheehan's summer in Crawford, months after John Murtha called for withdrawal because of how bad it was getting. Furthermore, it conveniently tosses down the memory hole a year and a half of brutal sectarian violence, a lot of it CARRIED OUT by those Iraqi security forces, particularly the police, who under Petraeus' leadership became a Shiite militia. The facts do not support such revisionist history.

Both Robert Menendez and Bob Casey have hit Gen. Petraeus on this today, and his response to this is literally that the Iraqi forces are taking a lot of casualties and that's why they haven't progressed. So that's an argument for exposing them MORE to the fight? If after four years of not being in the fight at all, they cannot conduct any independent operations, their capability to take them on after being in the lead cannot possibly be somehow better. This is really the endgame in Iraq. The entire underpinning of the strategy in Iraq is not credible. There is no end, only worry about chaos if we don't stay and keep the cork in the bottle, and that's probably by design.

The talk in Washington on Monday was all about troop reductions, yet it also brought into sharp focus President Bush's plans to end his term with a strong U.S. military presence in Iraq, and to leave tough decisions about ending the unpopular war to his successor.

The plans outlined by the U.S. commander in Iraq, Gen. David H. Petraeus, would retain a large force in the country -- perhaps more than 100,000 troops -- when the time comes for Bush to move out of the White House in January 2009.

The plans also would allow Bush to live up to his pledge to the defining mission of his presidency, and perhaps to improve his chances for a decent legacy. He can say he left office pursuing a strategy that was having at least some success in suppressing violence, a claim that some historians may view sympathetically.

"Bush has found his exit strategy," said Kenneth M. Pollack, a former government Mideast specialist now at the Brookings Institution. As Petraeus met with lawmakers and unveiled chart upon chart showing declining troop levels, the U.S. commander seemed to have opened a new discussion about how the United States would wind up its commitment to Iraq. Yet viewed more closely, his presentation, and that of U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker, were better suited to the defense of an earlier strategy: "stay the course."

And I'll take it a step further and suggest that the exit strategy goes right through the Democratic Party. When the Iraqi force proves unable to replace the American forces, the country will likely descend into a chaos that will be blamed on the Democratic President sitting in the White House at the time. Bush will be brush-clearing and giggling.

Train Left the Station

I applaud Sen. Menendez and Sen. Dodd's fight to restore habeas corpus, but this is highly unlikely to get a veto-proof majority, and as such this will be with us as an ignominious law for the near future. Menendez voted for the horrible Military Commissions Act, and while his support for this bill is cheering, the time to fight for habeas corpus was last October.

I think even a Democratic President would have difficulty signing a bill like this into law, fearing the "you want the terrorists to win" rhetoric from the right. That's no reason not to continue to shame Republicans by selling out civil liberties and American freedom by signing it away. But once a bill becomes law, reversing course is a long and winding road.