As I’ve noted before, the base of the Democratic party is pushing its leaders further and further left on Iraq. In the weeks after the midterm election, it was clear that Democrats wanted to avoid the political damage associated with taking part-‘ownership’ of Iraq. As long as they gave the president a ‘blank check,’ he would be blamed (or credited) with everything that happened there. Since the election, however, Democratic leaders have been constantly pressured to move more aggressively to get U.S. forces out of Iraq. They’ve moved from a non-binding resolution of disapproval to a date-certain for withdrawal. And now there is speculation that rather than fund the conflict for the remainder of the year, Congressional Democrats will dole funding out to the Pentagon in several installments. The theory is that as long as the Bush administration has funding for ‘the next few months,’ Democrats can continue to push the White House to agree to a timetable for withdrawal. Meanwhile, Democratic activists continue to press presidential candidates to commit to removing basically all U.S. troops from Iraq. It seems accepted that some Marines should stay to protect the embassy, but candidates will have to prove the need for any more. It’s feared that temporary installations for fighting al Qaeda might become permanent. Chris Dodd is garnering endorsements by calling on the other candidates to support a cutoff of all funding on March 31, 2008. Bill Richardson is earning plaudits for a clear message of ‘no trainers, no permanent bases, nada.’ My question is, where does this leave the Democrats in a few months? If they pursue their piecemeal funding strategy, there will be pressure to remain consistent with the Feingold bill, which Dodd has already endorsed. Will they use an appropriations bill to try to force a drawdown around September–as the Feingold bill suggests? And how will the other presidential candidates/senators react? Will Biden, Obama, and Clinton support such a move? I doubt that the Democrats will benefit politically from spending the next half-year nickel-and-diming the military in an attempt to tie down the president. And what if they eventually force a withdrawal of U.S. troops from combat? Can Iraq remain stable? If it does not, the argument will begin over whether the president was to blame for starting the war, or the Democrats for pulling out. Mickey Kaus recently made the point that if this debate even takes place, it means that the Democrats have shifted from sound political ground to “iffy territory.” And for the near future at least, doesn’t this take off the table the option of sending ground troops just about anywhere in the world for anything more than a surgical strike? If a potential mission might last more than a few months, might involve casualties in the tens or hundreds, might force a long-term presence to keep the peace, and/or involves potential threats rather than proximate ones, the precedent has been established to keep U.S. forces out. The Democratic presidential candidate may be left with a military doctrine that de facto consists of surgical strikes and cruise missiles–a return to the Clinton way of war in a post-9/11 world. But that problem might be moot if Democrats are seen as having forced the president to remove U.S. troops and that leads to a real civil war in Iraq. Things can always get worse, and a precipitous withdrawal of U.S. forces might make the ‘bomb-a-day’ stories coming out of Iraq seem like a happy memory. Perhaps none of this will happen. But if Democrats in Washington continue to ratchet up the pressure to bring U.S. troops home, they better have a pretty good handle on what is to follow. Update: I note that Jim Geraghty touches on some similar points.
