|
By John Fortier
|
|
Posted: 05/08/07 07:08 PM [ET] |
Timing is everything. For Democrats, the time to end the Iraq war is now. For President Bush, he is playing for time, trying to run out the clock on his second term without a forced troop withdrawal. For both sides, September looms as the month where these two timelines will clash, when we will decide if troops start coming home or if we will stay the course until at least January 2009.
Congressional Democrats had their timing thrown off by the president’s surge strategy and by the Democratic presidential primary, where Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s (N.Y.) challengers pushed for an immediate aggressive stance against the war. The imperative of the netroots anti-war community is to end the war now. If Election Day were right around the corner, congressional Democrats might prevail upon their agitated base to wait out the Bush term, but 20 months seems too long for activists who see the 2006 midterm election as a clear signal to pull out of Iraq.
At the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue, President Bush’s surge strategy is his last chance to get things right in Iraq. The war has gone on for four years, and democracies do not look kindly upon wars of this length unless they see good news around the corner. If he had four years left in his term, and he were not pressured by a Democratic majority in Congress, he would still have to make a tough call in 12 or 18 months. He would have to signal that the war was over, either on a positive note with a gradual troop withdrawal, transfer of responsibility and small remaining presence, or with a more negative admission that Iraq is not stable and that withdrawal means letting the chips fall as they might.
But the fact that Bush’s term will end in 20 months complicates both Bush’s and congressional Democrats’ timetables. President Bush knows that if he can maintain his strategy in Iraq until January 2008, he will likely be able to keep troops in Iraq until the end. The atmosphere in 2008 will be too political for Congress to force Bush’s hand, and the election will be soon enough that anti-war activists can channel their energy into the fall campaign.
This is why September is shaping up to be the key clash. The unpopularity of the war and the squeamishness of congressional Republicans has caused the president to promise an assessment of the progress in Iraq after Labor Day. The September timeframe is more political than military. If Gen. David Petraeus’s counter-insurgency strategy is going to work, it will take many months, and it will be nearly impossible to assess a strategy that has barely been implemented by the fall.
Congressional Democrats look to September as well. As of now, they cannot muster sufficient support to force the troops home. They need to fund the troops on the one hand and placate the strong anti-war members on the other. By offering an option that funds the troops for two or three months without a forced withdrawal, they can answer their critics who declaim their lack of support of the troops and keep their anti-war activists happy and ready for a September battle. The key then will be if enough Republicans are willing to walk away from the president’s strategy.
But while the battle lines will be drawn, September will likely bring muddle rather than resolution. Gen. Petraeus’s report on Iraq will likely be mixed. Some moderate Republican support will peel away, but the base of the Republican Party will still support the mission, even though the war will remain unpopular overall.
See you in September.
Fortier is a research fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. |
