Confirming in spades the central theme of today’s “Behind the Headlines” column, newly-installed Speaker of the House Nancy “It’s All About Me” Pelosi’s speech at the swearing-in reiterated her ongoing cop-out:
The election of 2006 was a call to change – not merely to change the control of Congress, but for a new direction for our country. Nowhere were the American people more clear about the need for a new direction than in Iraq.
The American people rejected an open-ended obligation to a war without end. Shortly, President Bush will address the nation on the subject of Iraq. It is the responsibility of the President to articulate a new plan for Iraq that makes it clear to the Iraqis that they must defend their own streets and their own security, a plan that promotes stability in the region, and that allows us to responsibly redeploy American forces.
Yet the President is not proposing an “open-ended commitment” — at least, explicitly. He still maintains that we can begin to withdraw as soon as the Iraqi military is up to par. If you sweep away the rhetorical flourishes, and the political posturing, the Democratic position of “phased redeployment” isn’t much different than the course we’re already on.
And why is it only the President’s responsibility to come up with a new “plan” for Iraq? Didn’t more than a few Democrats vote for this war? Okay, so the Democrats are against an “open-ended commitment” — what do they propose, instead? “Phased redeployment” is phrase-making pure and simple, but what does it mean, concretly?
The rest of Pelosi’s peroration makes it all too clear that it isn’t just on Iraq that the two wings of the War Party come together. Sayeth Speaker Pelosi:
Let us be the Congress that rebuilds our military to meet the national security challenges of the 21st century. Let us be the Congress that strongly honors our responsibility to protect our people from terrorism.Let us be the Congress that never forgets our commitment to our veterans and first responders, always honoring them as the heroes they are.
Translation: More money for the military, more glorification of war and war-makers, more nonsense about the “war on terrorism” that truly does have no end — this is what we get from Speaker Pelosi.
And we get more of the same, only at some length, in Pelosi’s “Open Letter to the President,” co-authored with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. Naturally, the Democratic National Committee’s house organ, otherwise known as the Huffington Post, is headlining this exercise in partisan gas-baggery, but if we look at what the letter actually says, it is hardly cause for celebration:
Rather than deploy additional forces to Iraq, we believe the way forward is to begin the phased redeployment of our forces in the next four to six months, while shifting the principal mission of our forces there from combat to training, logistics, force protection and counter-terror.
To be clear: the Democrats would begin “redeployment” by June, by which time the Iraqi civil war will have intensified to the point where the country will be plunged into complete chaos — and we will hear prominent voices warning against a “premature” withdrawal before “stabilization” is achieved. And how, pray tell, will changing “the mission” in the way Pelosi-Reid describe, change what is happening right now on the ground? When American forces go into Iraqi villages and kick down doors, terrorizing the inhabitants and sometimes killing them, will they do it in the name of “counter-terror,” or “force protection”? Perhaps they can pass it off as a training exercise. It is a macabre position to take — as if words had some magical power to transform atrocities into good policy.Â
A renewed diplomatic strategy, both within the region and beyond, is also required to help the Iraqis agree to a sustainable political settlement.
No one at Antiwar.com opposes breaking the diplomatic embargo on Iran and Syria, yet American withdrawal must not be contingent on forging a diplomatic “consensus” and a political solution. If we ever showed any serious inclination to pack our bags and get out of town, a number of neighboring countries, such as Jordan, Turkey, and quite possibly the Iranians (or a powerful faction in Tehran), would beseech us to stay
In short, it is time to begin to move our forces out of Iraq and make the Iraqi political leadership aware that our commitment is not open ended, that we cannot resolve their sectarian problems, and that only they can find the political resolution required to stabilize Iraq.
Our troops and the American people have already sacrificed a great deal for the future of Iraq. After nearly four years of combat, tens of thousands of U.S. casualties, and over $300 billion dollars, it is time to bring the war to a close.
Agreed. Yet the Democrats have no specific proposal of their own: instead, they content themselves with taking potshots from the sidelines and insist that it is the sole responsibility of the President to call the shots. That’s what got us into this war in the first place — Congress abdicated it’s constitutional authority, and gave the White House a blank check. And Bush and his pet neocons ran with it.
The Democrats need to put up, or shut up. They’re against the “surge” — except, perhaps, Carl Levin, given the circumstances — but does that mean they’ll vote against new funding for the war? Of course not. A Democratic-controlled Congress can cut the purse-strings — and we’re waiting. My guess is that we have a very long wait indeed ….
