The Democratic-led Congress and the Bush White House may be heading toward a train wreck over recently passed legislation setting a goal of withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq by March 2008. This was entirely predictable, but as the impasse deepens, it becomes more and more like a teenager's game of “chicken,” and thus increasingly unpredictable in its outcome. Meanwhile, many of us look on feeling torn and rather helpless. It is hard to see how moral principle can provide a clear way forward on this one.
The conflict began when the president sent a $100-billion spending bill to Congress to fund the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. For the first time, due to the change in congressional leadership, both the House and the Senate have responded by attempting to impose conditions on the appropriation of that money. The House bill would require the president to bring home most American combat troops by September 2008. The Senate bill sets the nonbinding goal of beginning a gradual withdrawal of combat troops within 120 days of passage of the measure. These bills would need to be reconciled somehow in the conference committee before being sent to the president. Both were passed by the narrowest of majorities voting almost entirely along party lines.
Meanwhile, every day that passes without authorization of the money hastens the moment when the Pentagon will need to start cutting other expenses, shifting funds and otherwise finding band-aids and shoestrings to keep troops supplied in the field. Estimates vary (depending on partisan loyalty) as to how long the impasse can continue before the troops find themselves running short on bullets and food. Probably it's longer than the president says and shorter than Democratic leadership says.
If Congress sends the president a funding bill that has the current strings attached and he vetoes it as he has threatened, we are back to square one, and the money will still have not reached the troops. It is difficult to know what other options will exist if that kind of impasse was to continue indefinitely. Probably both sides would start reading the opinion poll tea leaves to see if they were gaining or losing ground. For now, although polls (and last November's election) showed the public has turned against the war, it is not clear whether the Democrats' current approach risks overplaying their hand and turning opinion against them. All it would take would be one news story (legitimate or not) from Baghdad of troops without bullets — or soldiers bleeding to death without medical attention — to destroy the Democrats' standing with the public on this issue.
I continue to believe that this war must end and that the troops should come home, probably minus the stationing of some of them in the region but away from the civil war. However, the president does not believe this. He is the commander-in-chief. He has settled on a strategy (the “surge”) that is showing small signs of success — despite the disastrous daily carnage in Baghdad and the slow political progress in Iraq. Despite the great anxiety of many in his party about the war and its impact on our nation and on the future of the Republican Party, Bush has the great majority of them behind him in supporting at least a limited time window to see if his strategy can succeed. He apparently will never voluntarily accept an alteration of his plan or the timetable.
The most coherent Democratic position would be to simply refuse funding altogether and invite dissident Republicans to join them in ending the war by congressional fiat. The president would presumably have to withdraw the troops for lack of funds to keep them there. Congress does have the power of the purse. A president cannot veto a congressional refusal to appropriate money. Eventually, a presidential veto of the current strings-attached legislation will probably force Democrats to face this choice head on.
The balance of power probably rests with congressional Republicans. As long as they stand with the president on this latest round of funding, Democrats will lack the necessary national support to take the extraordinary step of ending a war by ending its funding. Most Republicans keep offering their support to the president. Whether they will be glad they did is something to be known only in years to come.
Meanwhile, Iraqis and Americans keep on dying.
And this is good evidence why war is and must always be an absolute last resort.
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— David Gushee is university fellow and Graves Professor of Moral Philosophy at Union University in Jackson, Tenn. www.davidgushee.com