For the better part of 2006, the dominant political argument about Iraq is that Democrats “disagree among themselves” over the war and a strategy for the future. Republicans were committed to “staying the course” and “more of the same,” but among Dems, there was a great deal of diversity of thought. Indeed, just yesterday, Bush said, “Democrats have been all over the place” in their own Iraq policy.
Nevertheless, it seems the parties have largely switched sides, at least as far as unanimity is concerned. Consider, for example, that one prominent senator yesterday said that Iraq was in “chaos” and that it was “worth trying” to partition the country into three semiautonomous regions. This same senator said she would have voted against the war resolution in 2002 “if I knew then what I had known now on the weapons of mass destruction.”
Sound like a Dem? Perhaps, but it was Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R) of Texas.
It’s just one hint of a larger Republican crack-up.
Public anxiety over the Iraq war, already reflected in polls and demands from some Democrats to withdraw U.S. troops, is now prompting calls for change from some unlikely quarters: Republican congressional candidates.
Across the country, GOP candidates are breaking with the White House over how long troops should remain in Iraq and who should lead the war effort.
Even some of President Bush’s staunchest allies in solidly Republican states are publicly questioning the administration’s war policies, while others are scrambling to find new ways to talk about Iraq in the face of rising voter frustration over management of the war.
“We haven’t found one part of the country, even in the South, where it is good to say, ‘Stay the course,’ ” said Sarah Chamberlain Resnick, executive director of the Republican Main Street Partnership, a group for GOP centrists. But Republicans “don’t want to do a major in-your-face with the president. They are trying to work around the issue in their districts.” It doesn’t seem to be working.
So, what happens next? According to a good front-page piece in the WaPo today, “major changes” are inevitable.
The growing doubts among GOP lawmakers about the administration’s Iraq strategy, coupled with the prospect of Democratic wins in next month’s midterm elections, will soon force the Bush administration to abandon its open-ended commitment to the war, according to lawmakers in both parties, foreign policy experts and others involved in policymaking.
Senior figures in both parties are coming to the conclusion that the Bush administration will be unable to achieve its goal of a stable, democratic Iraq within a politically feasible time frame. Agitation is growing in Congress for alternatives to the administration’s strategy of keeping Iraq in one piece and getting its security forces up and running while 140,000 U.S. troops try to keep a lid on rapidly spreading sectarian violence.
There’s some solid reporting in the article, and it quotes just about everyone from Dems, to Republicans, to scholars, to military experts. There were no quotes or comments, however, from the Bush administration itself. That seems like a fairly important detail.
The consensus seems to be that the status quo is simply untenable. The administration’s existing policy is an obvious failure, and all available evidence suggests the policy will never work. Given the circumstances, it seems obvious that events here and in Iraq will “soon force the Bush administration to abandon its open-ended commitment to the war.”
That sounds very reality-based, but I’m not convinced. These obvious facts are not new, and yet the president and his team have managed to ignore reality for quite some time. The Bush gang’s capacity for delusion should not be underestimated. Just because it’s painfully apparent that dramatic change is absolutely necessary in no way means Bush will actually consider it.
Indeed, consider yesterday’s White House press briefing. The far-right Washington Times reported that the Bush gang was considering a “dramatic change of direction” in Iraq. Tony Snow responded by calling the story a “bunch of hooey,” and then called several other ideas for a turnaround in Iraq “non-starters.”
Q And just to follow on “hooey,” the things that are raised in this hooey-filled article, such as the division of Iraq —
SNOW: Yes, partition — non-starter.
Q Non-starter? Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison raised it yesterday —
SNOW: Again, as I said, we have, in fact, considered — we consider lots of things. We’ve thought about partition, for a series of reasons —
Q Phased withdrawal?
SNOW: — again, you don’t — you withdraw when you win. Phased withdrawal is a way of saying, regardless of what the conditions are on the ground, we’re going to get out of Dodge.
Q The 5 percent solution —
SNOW: No.
Q Non-starter?
SNOW: Non-starter….
The president said just recently that says he’s going to stay the course, even if Laura and Barney are the only ones left in the country supporting him. It may come to that.