Iraq Kabuki

Clearly, if you know my views on Iraq you'll guess I'm not super thrilled about the wording of the Warner Resolution on Iraq. Certainly, I'm sympathetic to what Chris Dodd and Russ Feingold are saying about it. Triple certainly, I was a fan of the Kerry-Feingold resolution back in the day, and were I in a position to influence actual White House policy, what I'd be doing is moving as swiftly as logistically feasible to the removal of American troops from Iraq. That said, I tend to agree with Ed Kilgore that it would be a mistake to jab the knives in the back of this resolution. At the moment, absolutely anything that congress says or does about Iraq is pure kabuki. In kabuki terms, this resolution counts as a repudiation of Bush by Democrats and many Republicans. As policy, from what I can tell this resolution is not-so-wonderful. As kabuki, though, it's good kabuki.

Even if you disagree with that, what I'd urge everyone to do is keep their eyes on the real ball in the air at the moment: Iran. If Bush really bombs Iran and spineless Democrats back him ex post facto then the whole Iraq dynamic changes dramatically, and not for the better. If you want to hassle your member of congress on behalf of some peacenik cause this month, hassle him or her about Iran. The time to hassle your congressional leaders about Iraq will come, as I keep saying, when Bush needs to come ask congress for more money. Hold the line on Iran and hold the line on the supplemental request, and everything will be okay as it possibly can be. If, by contrast, Democrats bobble the Iran issue, then all the strongly-worded Chris Dodd bills in the world aren't going to save us.

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I am becoming very pessimistic about the possibility of either preventing the US from attacking Iran or preventing the Democrats from supporting it ex post.

I think I need a drink.

Posted by: otto on February 1, 2007 07:06 PM

Matt,

Isn't this the point where you go to Josh Marshall, or channel your inner Josh, and make a push to actually get people to hector their congressional leaders about Iran?

Specifically, isn't this where you flood Senators Clinton, Obama, (fmr) Edwards, Biden, etc with thousands of calls. and say "if you don't make real moves to stop this thing i'll never fucking vote for you in the primary, even though I'm somebody who is inclined to give money and knock on doors"

So um, how about some monamniactivism?

Posted by: Joel W on February 1, 2007 07:19 PM

I've already written both my Senators and my congresswoman about Iran. I am as pessimistic as otto, however. That may have something to do with the fact that my Senators are Hillary Clinton and Chuck Schumer.

Posted by: Antid Oto on February 1, 2007 07:48 PM

N-E-W A-U-M-F.

If we're gonna do kabuki, let's do it over something that is real to begin with - that we can later say, "if the Republicans in Congress had voted for this, we'd have been out of Iraq by now."

Posted by: RT on February 1, 2007 08:56 PM

It would be a mistake to underestimate the significance of the Iraq resolution. Because the Bush administration has defied the rest of American society on the surge and the public has largely repudiated the Bush administration, the U.S. no longer has a fully legitimate, democratic government.

As Jacob Weisburg pointed out in Slate, the Senate resolution will serve as a no-confidence vote in Bush. In doing so, the resolution will serve to represent American public opinion. That representative function is crucial to democracy. Also, the resolution will go some of the way toward establishing Congress as a source of legitimate government. Now that the Bush administration has become a renegade presidency, it is important that Congress step up to the plate to provide representative government for this country.

Posted by: Ric Caric on February 1, 2007 09:17 PM

Matt, all 300 million citizens in this nation could implore their representatives until they were blue in the face and Bush will still take us into a war with Iran. Doesn't anyone understand? It's a done deal, decided, full steam ahead. Take $50.00 out of your pocket. Let's you and me bet on it. Which way are you betting, war or no war? I know where I'm placing my bet.

Posted by: steve duncan on February 1, 2007 10:53 PM

Exactly

The administration knew it was going to take a short-term popularity bath by moving in a hawkish direction on Iraq just as the country moved dovish. The only reason they would have accepted this short-term setback, was if they knew that something would soon happen that would make going hawkish, while everybody else was going dove, look prescient and Churchillian, rather than just clueless and pig-headed. The only candidate I have for that "something" is the expected Iranian retaliation for whatever the administration is planning against them. If they hit us back hard enough, especially if they hit US civilians, it won't matter how disproportionally hard we had hit them in the first place. No one will be willing to "blame America first", no matter how objectively blameworthy whatever madness the President had unleashed first, in the aftermath of hundreds of Americans dead at the hands of Iranians. The only place in the process to stop this dynamic is before we hit them first.

Posted by: Glen Tomkins on February 2, 2007 01:11 AM

Congress should attach a one-time surtax on upper incomes to pay for the next Iraq Supplemental and make it clear that the same revenue strategy will apply until there is a clear exit strategy. Include an exemption for taxpayers with family members serving in Iraq.

Attempts at direct intervention in the way money is spent within the military establishment are unlikely to be effective in bringing the troops home or in maintaining a clear focus on Bush's responsibility for the failure of his war.

The advantage of the surtax is that it will infuriate Bush's most hardcore fans and provoke them to lower the boom on Bush if he fails to very, very visibly reject the idea. Veto, attempt at override, failure to override, etc. Bush gets more and more whipped up into outrage at the idea that his friends would have to sacrifice for his war. The public is shocked at his obsessive concern for top bracket tax-payers, while those top bracket folks are phoning their Republican Congressmen to say "get us out of Iraq, NOW!" Ultimately, there need to be a lot of Republican votes against Bush's strategy to make his behavior change and stay changed. Nixon only resigned after Barry Goldwater went to the White House to tell him it was all over.

Bush is wide open on this issue of SACRIFICE. He panicked and withdrew the use of this word from his "new way forward" speech because he knows this is a huge hole in his political strategy. When he tried to tell us that couch potatoes seeing bad news on TV constituted "sacrifice" he just telegraphed how totally unprepared his team is for Democrats to call bullshit on his "moral authority."

The Republicans will cry "liberals are just dying to raise taxes" and "you can't pay for a war in real time." Democrats just need to be ready to stand up to the initial blast of hot air and answer: "if President Bush thinks this is the defining struggle of our time, and is happy to send the same long-suffering troops back to Iraq over and over and over again, then affluent folks with no kids serving in Iraq can certainly afford to give back a little of their tax cuts to pay for some much needed body armor. We had economic growth of 3.5% last year, the stock market is at new highs. Somebody in America is doing JUST FINE. Stop whimpering about their precious tax cuts. Is this THE DEFINING STRUGGLE OF OUR TIME? Or is George W. Bush just the biggest liar of our time?"

We need to hammer a big wedge between Bush and his enablers. That wedge is called tax justice.

Posted by: STS on February 2, 2007 02:14 AM

"Matt, all 300 million citizens in this nation could implore their representatives until they were blue in the face and Bush will still take us into a war with Iran. Doesn't anyone understand?"

No. Folks like Matthew don't understand.

They want to absolve themselves for Iraq by adopting a non-reality based viewpoint on Iran, so if Bush does bomb Iran, they'll be able to bash Democrats and pretend their hands are clean.

Obviously, if Bush wants to bomb Iran, he's going to bomb Iran. This is Matthew's un-constructive personal version of the Dolchstosslegende.

Posted by: Petey on February 2, 2007 07:15 AM

I'm really pretty sure at this point that Matt Yglesias has absolutely no political skill whatsoever. Truly, does he think it will be politically more effective to give 25 Republicans cover and get a non-binding resolution passed, or does he think it will be more effective to have a binding resolution fail, proving to the public that we tried to do something and the pro-war Republicans stopped them. That doesn't make them look weak, it makes Republicans look stupid. Again, as I said, Yglesias lacks the skill the understand this.

Posted by: soullite on February 2, 2007 07:24 AM

Soullite, for the purposes you describe, a binding resolution that gets 21 votes is very different from a binding resolution that gets 45 votes. The difference between them is time, and failure of the non-binding resolution to produce any result. Whining about how the count now stands at 21, rather than 45, isn't going to be any part of getting from 21 to 45. Playing the thing out is.

(The above numbers are not based on anything, and are merely illustrative).

Posted by: CharleyCarp on February 2, 2007 08:01 AM

I agree. Its an evolving process, and it will take time to get to the point where Congress will stand up to the president with a binding resolution. So, for now we should support the nonbinding one.

Posted by: Jim W on February 2, 2007 09:32 AM

In kabuki terms, this resolution counts as a repudiation of Bush by Democrats and many Republicans.

It also asserts continued funding for military operations in Iraq, also known as "stay the course." So I agree, it's brilliant kabuki for Senate Democrats to tie themselves as visibly as possible to the current failed policy. Otherwise, only Republicans would own the Iraq disaster, and we can't have that, can we?

Posted by: mds on February 2, 2007 10:20 AM

What mds and others are missing is this:

The non-binding resolution is only the first step towards confronting Bush. It sets the stage for future congressional action, and as such needs bipartisan support. The Warner resolution is unfortunately weak, but that is an accepatable trade off for the statement that this will make to the country. In four months once our failure in Iraq is even more embarrassigly obvious (it does not seem possible, but it is), Congress will then be ready to do more.

The monkey wrench in this, I admit, is Bush's provocations towards Iran. Lets hope he fucks that up as badly as he does everything else.

Posted by: Nate L on February 2, 2007 11:29 AM

No doubt, STS has it right. Go ahead and give Bush the money he wants for Iraq, but pay for it by repealing the Bush tax cuts. If Bush rejects the idea, then he'll be wide open to the charge that he thinks the war is worth the lives of U.S. troops but not the $$$ of the wealthiest Americans. The rich GOP gang may love the war, but they love their money even more.

Posted by: Kafka on February 2, 2007 09:45 PM

"No doubt, STS has it right. Go ahead and give Bush the money he wants for Iraq, but pay for it by repealing the Bush tax cuts."

Thanks, Kafka. We need to go back and fight the "battle of the $87 Billion" and win it this time. You remember, the time when Kerry said "I voted for the $87 Billion before I voted against it" and the tape got played over and over and over ...

What you may *not* remember, however, is that Bush *also* was both for and against that $87 Billion. Kerry and Bush were only ever arguing about HOW TO PAY for it. Bush threatened to veto it if Kerry's favored amendment about revenue was attached. Back then, Bush had some credibility on the war still, the public was buying the right-wing BS about how "the hippies lost Vietnam", and the stock market hadn't really recovered yet. It seemed reasonable that the spending had to be "emergency", "off budget", etc. By this late date, however, the market is booming, Wall Street just paid out amazing bonuses, Bush has been bragging about how great the economy is and large majorities want to get out of Iraq.

The Democrats in Congress are terrified of being called "taxers", but there will *never* be better political cover for a tax increase than a TEMPORARY one targeted at the biggest beneficiaries of Bush's lopsided give-away tax cuts and dedicated to paying for the one spending project Bush is most deeply committed to: his war.

The Democrats just need to emphasize this isn't about a permanent tax increase. It's a direct linkage between FAIRNESS in our tax system and SACRIFICE in Iraq.

You put it very well, Kafka: "The rich GOP gang may love the war, but they love their money even more." I'd go even further. The GOP fundraising crowd are just as conflicted about the war as any of us, but are reluctant to undermine Bush for fear of losing some of their tax windfall. Take away that last reed of support and Bush collapses like the house of cards he is.

Now spread the word and maybe we can stop living this Kafka-esque nightmare!

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