For weeks, the White House and its allies have insisted, vehemently, that congressional Democrats and a handful of reasonable Republicans were sending a dangerous signal to the world through its criticism of the war. By even debating a resolution taking issue with the president’s escalation strategy, war opponents have undermined the troops and “emboldened the enemy.” Tony Snow went so far as to suggest that the debate brought “comfort” to terrorists.
At the exact same time, other White House allies argued that the resolution was a waste of time. It served no purpose, other than political theater. Lawmakers, they said, should be doing something practical if they’re so concerned about the disaster in Iraq.
As it turns out, the two arguments are not only contradictory, they’re also both wrong. Don’t take my word for it; just ask Condoleezza Rice.
[I]n her recent trip to Iraq, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice used the debate as part of a diplomatic strategy to urge Iraqi political leaders to accelerate their efforts to produce results on the economic and security conditions in Iraq. The NY Times reported:
“Ms. Rice said she used the restiveness in Washington to underline for Iraqi officials the spread of American frustration with Iraq’s lagging political and economic progress.
“She said she had ‘made clear that some of the debate in Washington is, in fact, indicative of the concerns that the American people have about the prospects for success’ if Iraq’s leaders did not quickly take actions to ensure longer-term stability.”
Iraqi leaders took note. Hoshyar Zebari, Iraq’s foreign minister, said Rice “emphasized a great deal the issue of urgency.” Rice stressed to Iraqi leaders that “patience is not unlimited in the United States and that there’s a great deal of frustration,” Zebari added.
In other words, congressional Dems are sending a message — which just so happens to be one the Bush administration thinks Iraqi officials need to hear.
Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, summarized this nicely.
“Interestingly enough, while we’re being criticized at the White House for having this debate, Condi Rice over in Baghdad was using the fact that Congress is moving towards restricting the presence of American troops in her effort to put pressure on the Iraqi leaders to tell them yesterday in Baghdad, ‘Hey, folks, you better get your political act together, because look, Congress is about to restrict in a number of possible ways the president in terms of American presence in Iraq.’
“It’s interesting that finally they understand the power of what we are doing in the Congress.”
If this were the movies, we’d see that congressional Dem leaders and the White House had worked all of this out in advance as part of some secret deal. The Bush gang would pretend to be outraged by the debate on the Hill, while secretly encouraging lawmakers to raise hell. That way, U.S. officials could tell the Iraqis, “Look, you have to do something quickly because we can’t keep those angry Democrats in Congress at bay much longer.”
Of course, I strongly suspect the White House isn’t this clever. It’s far more likely that administration officials blasted congressional debate, and then embraced it as a bargaining tool, not because of a grand scheme, but because they’re hypocrites who are making up their strategy as they go along.
And as for all of the White House allies who said Dems have been sending a dangerous signal to Iraqis, and undermining the troops, apologies can be sent to: Congressional Democratic Caucus, Capitol Hill, Washington, DC 20515.