Congress's War Dodge

They're for the war but also against it.

Wall Street Journal
Thursday, May 17, 2007 12:01 a.m.

Democrats in the Senate yesterday demonstrated, once again, that they neither have the votes for withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq nor a real policy on the war.

Wednesday's vote to cut off funding by March 31, 2008, was voted down 67-29, with 19 Democrats joining every Republican in opposing the measure, which was submitted as an amendment to an unrelated bill. Wisconsin Senator Russ Feingold, who put forth the measure with Majority Leader Harry Reid, noted optimistically that a majority of his caucus voted for the measure, which is one way of defining majority down.

There seemed to be some ambivalence, moreover, even among the 29 who supported the measure. Presidential hopefuls Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama both voted for Mr. Feingold's amendment, but they also indicated that it was more about sending a message than setting policy. We recall Bob Dole's legendary advice to a freshman Republican that he couldn't go wrong voting for a bill that failed. The two Democrats thus don't give competitor John Edwards any running room on the antiwar left, but they also don't have to take responsibility. Ah, war-time leadership.

The Democrats, in other words, remain trapped in the land of symbolism over the war. Taking up the responsibility that the "power of the purse" gives them does not seem to be on the agenda. They'd rather posture, appeasing their party's left wing without taking ownership of war policy. This evasiveness won't let them off the hook, however. The political consequences of defeat won't only belong to President Bush. To the extent that Democrats are making the conduct of the war more difficult and less certain, they already bear responsibility for the war's outcome whether they like it or not.


We should add that some Republicans are behaving little better. House Minority Leader John Boehner, who likes to talk about Congress's responsibility to support the troops, has recently taken to the airwaves to suggest that a September deadline for "progress" might not be such a bad idea after all. This comes despite the fact that the troop surge is not yet even fully deployed and certainly hasn't been given a chance to work. The fifth U.S. brigade for Baghdad won't even arrive until June.

Most embarrassing was last week's demonstration of faux political courage by 11 Republican "moderates" who met privately with President Bush at the White House to warn him about falling support for Iraq, as if he wasn't aware of it. They then promptly called reporters to advertise their willingness to confront a President with a 33% approval rating. They had no such doubts about the war when they voted for it in October 2002.

Republicans in tough districts are entitled to be uneasy, but they, like their colleagues across the aisle, can't have it both ways. Withdrawal or redeployment from Iraq can be determined by political considerations, which translates into embracing defeat. Or it can be informed by military considerations, which means giving General David Petraeus & Co. the resources they need and letting them decide when the mission has been accomplished or has become impossible.

There are certainly Democrats who have already decided that we are on Mission: Impossible. But, as yesterday's vote showed, that wing of the party lacks the votes to make policy or to cut off war funding. They owe it to the country, then, to sit down and fund the troops and let the generals do their job.