Why Democrats can't end war

[concerned citizen23]

The following article appeared on the frontpage of today's San Francisco Chronicle:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2007/09/26/MN9CSAVTH.DTL

Even if Democrats win White House, troops likely to remain in Iraq
Carolyn Lochhead, Chronicle Washington Bureau
Wednesday, September 26, 2007

PDT Washington -- What is wrong with this picture: Two-thirds of the country oppose the Iraq war, but Democrats again are proving unable to achieve their promised "new direction," and President Bush is certain to keep the maximum possible number of U.S. forces in Iraq for the remainder of his presidency.

Iraq is making the Vietnam quagmire look like a sandbox.

Facing votes on another $200 billion in war spending and poll numbers that have sunk below Bush's, Democrats readily admit that voters are furious with them. The reason they can't end the war, they say, is that they don't have the votes.

Democrats lack the 60 votes in the Senate to overcome a Republican filibuster on just about any measure to force a change in Bush's Iraq strategy, much less the two-thirds majorities in both the Senate and the House to override a presidential veto.

"The American people are very frustrated and are being very vocal about this," said Rep. Barbara Lee, an anti-war Oakland Democrat who has never voted for any funding for the war. "People need to understand where problem lies."

"We're a legislative body, and therefore we follow certain rules and procedures that have been set," said Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif. "People don't like to hear this, but it is the real world in which we function. To close debate on anything requires 60 votes. We have 50 votes on Iraq."

True enough. Starting a war is much easier than ending one. There are other reasons the war drags on - and might continue, possibly for years, even if a Democrat wins the White House in November 2008.

The leading Democratic presidential candidate, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, steadfastly refused as recently as Sunday's round of talk shows to promise that all U.S. forces would be withdrawn if she is elected.

"I'm not going to get into hypotheticals and make pledges," Clinton said Sunday. "I don't want to speculate about how we're going to be approaching it until I actually have the facts in my hand and the authority to be able to make some decisions."

Charles Kupchan, who worked in the National Security Council under President Bill Clinton, said that among Democrats there is "a sincere belief that we can't pack up and go home. And that is, I think, a view that is congealing among the party's leadership. In fact, I would say it's ... a more potent political force right now than fear of being blamed" if the situation in Iraq gets even worse after U.S. forces pull back.

"There's a palpable fear that there could be genocide," Kupchan said. "There's a palpable fear that Iraq will come apart at the seams and turn into a wider war. There's a palpable fear that Iran would use instability in Iraq to further its regional ambitions. So I think responsible Democrats are wary of the view that 'this didn't work, let's go home.' "

Most Democratic plans floated in Congress call for a continued U.S. presence to train the Iraqi army, protect U.S. assets and personnel and conduct operations against al Qaeda in Iraq - a force that could amount to 60,000 troops, more or less. That is far below the 130,000 troops Bush plans to keep in Iraq, but still a large presence.

"I've had an opportunity to talk about Iraq and other military topics with some Democratic candidates like Sen. Clinton and Sen. (Chris) Dodd, and the conclusion I come to is that America will still have forces in Iraq five years from now," said Loren Thompson, an analyst at the Lexington Institute, a conservative-leaning think tank.

"This whole situation reminds me of the movie title, 'No Way Out.' The only way that we could make a clean break with Iraq today is to accept the possibility of utter chaos in the world's principal oil-producing region. ... Once we get a Democratic administration - if we get a Democratic administration - things will change, but not to a degree that would satisfy the left wing of the Democratic Party."

Some political scientists see a parallel between Clinton's vague promises of ending the war and Richard Nixon's "secret plan" to get out of Vietnam, hinted at during his 1968 campaign and abandoned after he won the presidency.

Dark horse Democratic presidential candidate Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico has even released a new Internet video accusing fellow Democrats of secret plans not to end the war. "You might be surprised to learn that Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John Edwards would all leave tens of thousands of troops in Iraq," the video says.

Kenneth Baer, a speechwriter for former Vice President Al Gore, and co-founder of a new Democratic-leaning journal "Democracy," said former Secretary of State Colin Powell's "Pottery Barn" judgment was right. "We went in and we broke it," Baer said. "We have a moral obligation to leave in an orderly fashion and not create more chaos, death and destruction, and I think there's also a very cold-eyed realist strategic argument that you don't want to pull out of Iraq in such a way that will damage our interests in the region and the world, and our prestige."

Leon Panetta, chief of staff to President Clinton, a longtime member of Congress from Monterey and a member of the Iraq Study Group, said that nearly all the presidential candidates "have recognized that almost under any scenario, there's going to be a U.S. presence in Iraq. How big a presence obviously is the question mark, but clearly there isn't any Democrat I know of who thinks that we can just simply pick up everybody and leave without ensuring that there is a force there to try to continue to help provide some stability."

Yet many analysts outside Democratic circles question all these assumptions.

As a practical matter, a smaller U.S. presence in Iraq would be far more vulnerable to attack. A smaller force would be unable to stop a large-scale civil war and might not be capable of conducting operations against al Qaeda in Iraq or protecting Iraq's borders. A smaller force and even a large embassy might not be tolerated by any of the Iraqi factions. In the end, they argue, a U.S. presence might serve no useful purpose at all.

"Exactly what are we going to do over the next two or three, or four or five or six years in Iraq to avert a civil war, to somehow abate the deep intercommunal hatred, to make the army loyal to a central government that is dysfunctional and corrupt?" asked Wayne White, head of the State Department's Iraq intelligence team from 2003-2005, and an adviser to the Iraq Study Group.

"I can't come up with any way in which we can pull that back together again. You don't want to be caught there in the middle of it. You could stay there three, four, five more years, lose another 1,000 American dead, 5,000 terribly maimed and blow another $200 billion and have the same thing happen" as is likely to happen after a withdrawal.

Any troop presence in Iraq would sustain heavy casualties, he said. As for training Iraqi forces, that has been going on for four years, yet the troops never reach the promised capability or capacity because they are not loyal to the central government.

White also contends the recent U.S. alliance with Sunni tribes is helping destroy al Qaeda in Iraq - a chief U.S. reason for staying.

Democrats have another problem: They are terrified of getting blamed for what happens if they pull the plug. Republicans pound this theme. Bush has even embraced the Vietnam analogy to argue that leaving Iraq too soon would squander potential victory and lead to humanitarian and strategic catastrophes.

For Democrats to counter criticism that they lost the war "requires telling the American public that this is the biggest mistake in the history of American foreign policy," said Tony Smith, a political scientist at Tufts University. "That is something the American public does not want to hear."

In Iraq: Sunni extremists launch at least 10 attacks in 48 hours in an apparent campaign to assassinate police chiefs, police officers and other Interior Ministry officials throughout Iraq. A17

7 reasons Democrats cannot end the war in Iraq:

1. Lack of votes: Democrats have 50 anti-war votes in the Senate. They need 60 to overcome Republican filibusters that have blocked every proposal to change the U.S. mission. Even if they cleared that hurdle, they lack the two-thirds majorities in the House and the Senate to overcome a presidential veto.

2. Public uncertainty: Two-thirds of the public want to leave Iraq, but that majority is unsure how and when to do so. Politicians also are wary that the public mood could shift.

3. Strategic uncertainty: No one knows what would happen if U.S. troops pull back, and the potential for bad outcomes is high no matter what the United States does.

4. Blame game: Democrats are afraid that if there is a withdrawal and Iraq spirals out of control, they will be blamed for losing a war that might have been won and will be held responsible for any bad consequences in the Middle East.

5. Lack of bipartisanship: Bipartisanship does not serve either party's political interest. Agreement blurs partisan distinctions, makes Democrats look like they are capitulating and forces Republicans to countenance an American defeat.

6. Guilt: Many Democrats believe the United States, having invaded Iraq, bears responsibility for stabilizing it.

7. The Constitution: If the United States were a parliamentary democracy, the Bush administration would have been replaced last November. But under the Constitution, the president is commander in chief, and Congress' only tool is to cut off funds for the war, which it can't do because there are not enough votes.

- Carolyn Lochhead

[patrioticintellect]

1. This part on the Constitution---it's misleading

"7. The Constitution: If the United States were a parliamentary democracy, the Bush administration would have been replaced last November. But under the Constitution, the president is commander in chief, and Congress' only tool is to cut off funds for the war, which it can't do because there are not enough votes."

Votes don't matter. There is no need to vote. Congress just refuses to create a bill that would continue the war. They stop passing bills and say, "Mr. President, the war is over. The money is gone. It's time to bring our troops home. Or else."

[Jim__]

2. It does not take 60 votes to block a supplemental funding bill.

That gives the Dems lots of leverage. They need to use that leverage to gain some control over what is going on in Iraq.

[Kuni]

3. Just don’t pass any funding Bills without ‘the Biden plan added’ till Bush concedes. It is that easy

Put withdrawal language in the Bill that Polls show a majority of Americans already support and stick to it without blinking/flinching. Tie the funding to implementing the Biden Plan.

And every time a Mic is stuck in any of their faces continually point out that it is Bush who is holding up the funding, not Congress.

[partylessinOhio]

4. Excuses, excuses, excuses. The Dems simply lack the guts to end the

war by stopping the funding. They will answer for it in the next election and excuses won't save them from losing.

[patrioticintellect]

5. Follow Gravel's plan

Vote every day for the next 40 days to end the war. Eventually, the American people will tighten the noose around their leaders and we will be out.