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Lugar’s Iraq speech sends ripples through Capitol |
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By Elana Schor
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Posted: 06/26/07 12:25 PM [ET] |
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee’s ranking Republican kept the Capitol buzzing Tuesday morning after making an unexpected break from President Bush’s war policy, calling the administration’s troop increases counterproductive and urging military disengagement in Iraq.
Sen. Richard Lugar (Ind.), considered one of the GOP’s foreign-affairs deans, took to the floor Monday night for a speech that surprised those on both sides of the aisle.
“Unless we recalibrate our strategy in Iraq to fit our domestic political conditions and the broader needs of U.S. national security, we risk foreign policy failures that could greatly diminish our influence in the region and the world,” Lugar said.
Lugar’s speech does not necessarily translate into a newly reliable vote for Democrats seeking to ratchet up anti-war pressure on Bush — he has voted against the majority’s withdrawal measures so far this year. Yet the sight of a White House loyalist pressing a course change in Iraq before September thrilled Democrats and their allied interest groups.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) thanked Lugar for weighing in, paying tribute to the foreign policy credentials of the Indianan known as a White House loyalist.
“Some floor speeches go unnoticed, but Senator Lugar’s is not one of them,” Reid told his colleagues Tuesday morning.
“When we finally end this war — and the history books are written — I believe that Senator Lugar’s words yesterday could be remembered as a turning point. But that will depend on whether more Republicans will take the courageous first step that Senator Lugar took last night.”
Brad Woodhouse, president of the liberal-leaning Americans United for Change, deemed Lugar’s speech a “tsunami” of momentum against the war.
“Senator Lugar’s reassessment of the situation in Iraq has shifted the Iraq debate forward at light speed,” Woodhouse said in a statement. “It provides an opening for other like-minded Republicans to abandon the President’s failed policy in Iraq and it has further isolated the President.”
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