New Congressional antiwar measures

Prowar Texas Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R) with Gen. David Petraeus

A year can make a big difference. Members of Congress are taking a confusing set of positions on the Iraq War. But the good news is that majorities in both Houses are going on record with substantive proposals to require the implementation of an exit strategy. Things were very different a year ago when the Republicans still controlled both Houses of Congress.

A broadly bipartisan opposition would be ideal. But that ain't gonna happen right away with today's authoritarian Republican Party. Still, with Bush's poll ratings now competing with Nixon at his lowest, and Cheney's low rating competing with Satan's, a veto-proof majority for some substantive antiwar measure is no longer unthinkable.

And the Democratic leadership seems to recognize that the way to move in that direction is to make the Republicans vote, over and over and over again, to take a position on Cheney's and Bush's Iraq War. And to give Republicans like Senators Lugar and Dominici who try to distance themselves from the war with meaningless public handwringing numerous opportunities to put their votes where their empty rhetoric is.

And if the Dems can get majority votes for an Iraq Study Group-style withdrawal of "combat" troops, that's fine to vote for it. Getting majority votes for that kind of proposal - which is what the Democratic House did again yesterday - keeps public attention and even our lazy news media focused on the Iraq War, it validates the views of the large antiwar majority and it ratchets up the pressure on Republicans to enact such measures.

But I hope Barbara Lee's Out of Iraq Caucus and the antiwar movement more generally can also keep the reality in public view that a partial pullout is not a sufficient exit strategy. I realize that an argument like that can (and probably will be) used by pseudo-critics of the war like the phonies Lugar and Dominici to say, "I'm against antiwar measure X because it doesn't go far enough". It's an old trick.

But pulling out "combat" troops and leaving residual forces on permanent bases for special missions is a de-escalation strategy, not an exit strategy. Juan Cole calls it right in his Informed Comment blog of 07/13/07:

This plan of keeping troops in Iraq to fight "al-Qaeda" seems to me naive. Who is al-Qaeda? If you mean Iraqi Sunnis who have become Salafi Jihadis, then it seems unlikely that the US military can fight them successfully with a smaller force. It is just wishful thinking. If 160,000 US troops cannot do it, a smaller force cannot do it. And, the smaller you make the force, the more the US military becomes a sitting duck for militias and others. Likewise it is no good saying you'll keep troops in Kurdistan. Kurdistan is landlocked, and depends heavily for investment, trade and a route to the rest of the world on Turkey. No way to provision a US base unless the Turks give in and say they will permit its provisioning.

If you leave small expeditionary forces inside Iraq to fight "al-Qaeda," they will likely get massacred at some point, and then you'll be pulled right back into the maelstrom.

Even on the partial-withdrawal measures, though, the Dems still need to do a better job at countering the war cheerleaders' ever-changing Party line about the war. For several weeks now, a favorite one has been to pretend that everyone we're fighting in Iraq is "Al Qaida". In fact, most of the insurgents and the militias involved in the civil war are Iraqis with no connection and little or no sympathy with Bin Laden's Al Qaida. For Anthony Cordesman's latest update on the Iraqi insurgency, see Success or Failure? Iraq’s Insurgency and Civil Violence and US Strategy: Developments through June 2007 (Center for Strategic and International Studies) 07/09/07; the section on "foreign fighters" is on p. 88 of the paper, p. 95 of the PDF document.

The majority of Iraqis are Shi'a. Bin Laden's Al Qaida is an extreme Sunni Salafist group that considers Shi'a to be infidels, not true Muslims. The group that calls itself "Al Qaida in Iraq" is small, a few thousand at most. And its actual connection to Bin Laden's group is tenuous and doubtful. There are international jihadists, some of which undoubtedly are connected to Bin Laden's group, coming into Iraq to practice jihad against the Americans and maybe some Sunni and Shi'a "infidels", too. That is a real problem. But it's only a tiny part of what US troops are facing in the Iraqi fighting. Plus, if fighting Al Qaida is the real goal in Iraq, the current strategy doesn't fit the mission. As Antoniusblock from the Strategy and National Security blog puts in The Illogic of American Military Strategy in Iraq 07/10/07:

If foreign fighters are the threat, our entire military should be focused on border control, leaving internal pacification to Iraqi security forces (an approach, by the way, that might have been effective in Vietnam).

Think, for a minute, of the basic logic of defense. Take missile defense. Experts tell us that at every stage in the flight of a missle - pre-launch, launch, boost, re-entry, impact - interception becomes more difficult. The earlier in the flight a missle is destroyed, the easier. The same holds for the influx of foreign fighters into Iraq. But, by focusing on securing Iraqi towns, we are attempting defense at its most difficult point - impact. The best strategy would be to staunch the flow of foreign fighters and funds at their source. But given the nature of the benighted suppliers of fighters and funds (Saudi Arabia, Syria, etc) that may be impossible. The next best strategy, then, may be to focus on the "re-entry" stage - border security.

The PBS Newshour on Thursday featured a "he said/she said" segment about the Iraq War, which unfortunately illustrates how hard some Dems still find it to counter Bush's case for indefinite fighting in Iraq (Report Reveals Mixed Progress on Iraq Benchmarks 07/12/07). Republican Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas faithfully recited the party script of the day. But Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois got first crack at it. And he gave a decent opening statement emphasizing that Democrats want a pullout plan and challenging Republican war critics to actually do something to oppose the war. Then Hutchison made her opening salvo:

What enemy would ever fear us? What ally would ever trust us, if we just leave without any regard to the circumstances on the ground, without any regard to al-Qaida? Anyone who has been over there will tell you that we are winning against al-Qaida. If we left al-Qaida to take over Iraq, we would basically be facing what al-Qaida had in Afghanistan before we were able to help Afghanistan get out from under that terrible regime.

So I think we should come together and talk about, what is the right policy for the long-term future of our country? And most of all, what can we do to make sure that our troops who are there don't put a bull's eye on their front, because we signaled to the enemy that we don't really believe that this mission can be accomplished. I think that would be terrible. (my emphasis)

The real core of Hutchison's opening statement was, "al-Qaida ... al-Qaida ... al-Qaida ... al-Qaida". So the antiwar Dem jumped on that deception, right? He called her out for lying? He maybe more politely suggested that she had "distorted the facts"?

Uh, no. He started out in his rejoinder reciting statistics about wounded American soldiers and continued on without mentioning the "Al Qaida" head-fake.

she came back with "al-Qaida ... al-Qaida". This time Durbin responded - and reinforced the "al-Qaida ... al-Qaida" incantation!

They are the best, but it really doesn't honor their memory for us to continue a war and claim more American lives in a civil war that just has no end in sight. The fact is that there was no al-Qaida presence in Iraq when we invaded. Now it's become a great training ground, as the al-Qaida terrorists come in and try to kill American soldiers on a daily basis.

We have lost our sights on the real goal of going after Osama bin Laden and the Taliban. We should have focused our efforts on that. Maybe we would have been more successful. Instead, the president took us off on this invasion of Iraq and, unfortunately, al-Qaida has grown in strength in that period of time. (my emphasis)

What Durbin needed to do was to challenge her phony claim that the Iraq War is all about fighting "Al Qaida" and use that as a way to remind the viewers that Republican war supporters have played fast and loose with the facts about Iraq since Bush's "axis of evil" speech in early 2002.

Instead, the prowar Republican got to tell the viewers that we're staying in the Iraq War to fight Al Qaida. And instead of challenging the bogus claim, the antiwar Democrat reinforced it.

If 70% of the public can turn against the war with this kind of antiwar leadership from Big Dems, imagine what could happen if the Dems in Congress could get a little better message control and actually call the Republicans on it when they make phony claims!

Tags: dick durbin, iraq war, kay bailey hutchison