Matt Stoller: Calling Out the "Pressure from the Antiwar Left" Narrative

[babylonsister]

Calling Out the "Pressure from the Antiwar Left" Narrative
by: Matt Stoller
Mon Sep 10, 2007 at 10:39:13 AM EDT

I'm beginning to tire of the notion that there has been some great pressure brought to bear by the antiwar base of the Democratic Party.

In the Senate, the crucible of the debate, many Republicans have grown increasingly skeptical of the president's policy, though they are unwilling to go as far Democrats. And Democratic leaders, determined to end the war on their terms and under intense pressure from their antiwar base, have refused to yield enough ground to accommodate them.

In reality, the antiwar base has been as meek as lambs to the Democratic Party. First of all, the idea that there is nothing the Democrats can or could have done to stop the war is simply nonsense. The Bush administration admits as much in an article in the Washington Post on dissent around the surge strategy when it was first announced.

"There was a real question about whether we'd be able to do this at all," said a White House aide. Within five weeks, the House had voted to oppose the troop buildup, and Democratic leaders were vowing to tie Bush's hands. Most worrisome was the discontent among Republicans. "It could have potentially strangled this strategy in the crib," Wehner said.

The Democrats could have stopped it. They didn't. Democrats like Joe Biden are saying there's nothing they can do to stop the war, and progressives like Barbara Boxer are echoing his point. The narrative undergirding a lot of the stories here are that Democrats are under pressure from their antiwar base, but are standing up to it. That is a false narrative. Politicians respond to pressure, and that means the backsliding we've seen over the past six months is a result of the Democrats not feeling pressure on Iraq, or more likely, feeling more from elites and the right than from the Democratic base. When you look at the Presidential context, this is basically indisputable. Democratic base voters think that the leading candidates will withdraw all troops from Iraq, which is simply untrue. While the argument that Democrats in Congress are boxed in by procedural contraints holds some water, there is no conceivable reason why Democratic Presidential candidates should support keeping troops in Iraq... unless they really just want to keep troops in Iraq. That this mass deception is allowed to continue suggests that there is very little pressure on Democrats to end the war.

more...

http://www.openleft.com/showDiary.do;jsessionid=3156F75E405FCE7C028EAFB22AEDCDFF?diaryId=1254

[leftchick]

1. about those dem prez candidates and "withdrawal"

the truth is most want to keep "some troops" on our sprawling bases forever.....

http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/174807

Remarkably enough, when asked late last year by pollsters from the Program on International Policy Attitudes whether we should have the "permanent" bases in Iraq, a whopping 68% of Americans said no. But when the issue of bases and permanency arises at all in our press, it's usually in the context of Iraqi "suspicions" on the subject. (Oh, those paranoid foreigners!) Typically, the Los Angeles Times cited Michael O'Hanlon, an oft-quoted analyst at the Brookings Institution, saying the following of the President's endorsement of the Korea model: "In trying to convey resolve, conveys the presumption that we're going to be there for a long time.... It's unhelpful to handling the politics of our presence in Iraq." No, Michael, the bases are our politics in Iraq.

Generally, the Democrats and their major presidential candidates line up with O'Hanlon. And yet no significant Democratic proposal for "withdrawal" from Iraq is really a full-scale withdrawal proposal. They are all proposals to withdraw American combat brigades (perhaps 50,000-60,000 troops) from the country, while withdrawing most other Americans into those giant bases that are too awkward to mention.

[Bitwit1234]

2. Let's start a discussion on how democrats CAN end the war.

I wish someone would come up with a workable plan that can end the war. Can make bush withdraw the troops, and stop sending our military to their deaths. And giving all our tax money to the corrupt corporations like, Halliburton, who rule Iraq.