The Democratic Congress & Iraq

When you see an action being committed that strikes you as inherently wrong and misguided, what is your obligation to act in response to it? What if you’re in a position to prevent or thwart it? Is it your obligation to act within your means to do so?

Congressional Democrats face this dilemma. With the lone exception of Senator Lieberman, they uniformly oppose the president’s adjusted strategy in Iraq and it is generally within their power to not only thwart its implementation but to even end our involvement in Iraq altogether.(1) Given this position, what are they to do? What are they compelled to do?

If their intent is to serve the nation’s interest and it is their conviction that sending more troops into Baghdad–and remaining in Iraq altogether–contradicts the national interest than they must act to prevent the surge and bring our forces home, or propose an alternative strategy. Courage and faithfulness to conviction obligates them to. After all, if you judge something to be wrong should you not act within your means to end it or at least prevent its propagation?

Well, apparently not. Democrats fulminate that not only is sending twenty-thousand more troops to Baghdad wrong, but that success in Iraq is no longer possible and that we ought to "redeploy" our forces precipitously. Logically, that means they would exercise their legislative powers to not only prevent our presence in Iraq from increasing, but to end it completely. As Rep. Dennis Kucinich has declared, "It is simply not credible to maintain that one opposes the war, yet continues to fund it. If you oppose the war, then don’t vote to fund it."

But in actuality the Democrats’ rhetoric does not extend beyond that; mere rhetoric. Instead of backing their words with action, non-binding resolutions have been introduced in both houses of Congress expressing their respective chambers’ opposition. That is not anything more than rhetoric in legal form. Either they are not willing to follow their principles in pursuit of serving the national interest or they do not have principles whatsoever beyond the pursuit of their own political interest.(2)

The latter seems to be the case. Unwilling to take any responsibility for the situation in Iraq and accept the potential political ramifications that might ensue should they translate their bombastic rhetoric into action, the Democrats in Congress freely polemicize yet conspicuously decline to follow through with constructive action of their own in an attempt to attain cheap political benefit.

After interviewing Rep. Rahm Emanuel, the architect of the Democrats’ ‘06 victories in the House, David Ignatius characterized the Democrats’ approach to Iraq as such. "The country is angry, and it will only get more so as the problems in Iraq deepen. Don't look to Emanuel's Democrats for solutions on Iraq. It's Bush's war, and as it splinters the structure of GOP power, the Democrats are waiting to pick up the pieces."

If that is true than congressional Democrats are deliberately positioning themselves to gain politically from American failure and defeat. Victory or, if you prefer, shirking complete disaster in Iraq is undeniably in America’s interest, but the Democrats’ strategy is to refuse to do anything to accomplish either because it would run counter to their political interest. Ostensibly at least, they are putting party over nation.

This nakedly partisan and political approach would not even be that offensive if its consequences were limited only to domestic electoral politics. They are not though. Democratic strategies to score politically from failure in Iraq can only harm our men and women fighting in Iraq. When American soldiers are fighting and dying in a foreign land, their political leaders back home have an obligation to either support them absolutely or bring them home, whichever option their conviction leads them to take. Matters as grave and serious as war and peace mandate that the nation’s political leaders demonstrate decisive, principled leadership; not partisan and political opportunism guised as governance.

If congressional Democrats wish to take the public stance that our men and women in Iraq must come home than they must act within their means to effect that outcome. If they are not prepared to do this than they have an obligation to do all they can to support the American soldier serving in Iraq, or at the very least, should abstain from cutting him off at the knees. He deserves nothing less.

(1) Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution enumerates that "Congress shall have Power To...provide fore the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States." It is entirely within Congress’ power to simply stop appropriating for the Iraq war, as the Congress did in Vietnam.

(2) This is not to say that I believe America should "redeploy" from Iraq now or in the coming months, only that the Democratic majority in Congress which does, on balance, believe that, or at least publicly endorses and advocates the proposition, should act within their means to effect that outcome.