In the case of Iraq, what does withdrawal really mean?
Many Democrats have plans to withdraw the United States from Iraq, and their definitions of withdrawal are all a little bit different.
Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., an anti-war voice in 2003 who now takes a more cautious approach to pullout, wants a “reduction” of troops to begin in October, with completion of the reduction 180 days later set as a “goal.”
New York Senator and presidential candidate Hillary Clinton introduced a bill to de-authorize the war unless Bush begins redeploying himself. Clinton competitor Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., has called for a “complete redeployment of combat brigades” by March 2008, but also for an intensification of U. S training of Iraqi troops.
Reflecting the constitutional doubt over what Congress can make the commander in chief do, Obama’s plan includes an infinitely renewable presidential waiver that can stop his withdrawal. And reflecting the political need to project power (anti-war constituents protest Congress’s over-caution nearly as much as Bush’s over-reaching), he also throws in a congressional waiver of the presidential waiver.
But the whole situation suddenly clarified when Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada put Sen. Russ Feingold’s proposal to a vote two weeks ago. Separated out from the scrum of goals, benchmarks, waivers and reductions, the Wisconsin Democrat’s amendment — to cut funding by March 2008 — was perceived as the real deal, a hard-core withdrawal. “This is way out there,” an aide to a moderate Senate Democrat told me nervously.
Democrats who voted for Feingold’s proposal defended their controversial votes with the rhetoric of finality.
“It is time to bring this war to a close,” Obama told a trade unionists’ convention in Chicago, having thrown over his waivers, at least temporarily.
Feingold was more dramatic. “Why should we wait any longer?,” he asked, in an impassioned plea on the Senate floor. “[Americans] want us out of Iraq and they want us out now. … They don’t want to pass this problem off to another president, and another Congress. And they sure don’t want another American servicemember to die, or lose a limb, while elected representatives put their own political comfort over the wishes of their constituents.”
But does Feingold’s withdrawal proposal bring the war to a close? Does it get us out of Iraq and out now? Not exactly. Most importantly, the much-ballyhooed funding cut in March 2008 has three crucial exceptions: troops necessary to conduct “targeted operations” against “members of al Qaeda and other international terrorist organizations,” provide security for U.S. infrastructure and personnel, and train the Iraqi Army and Police. Almost all the Democratic Iraq proposals, in fact, contain the exact same three exceptions to their troop-reduction prescriptions.
Feingold says he hopes personnel left in Iraq to take care of those three purposes would be “limited.” But one Democratic aide told me the military officials his boss has been consulting estimate those operations could take 60,000 to 70,000 troops in Iraq or the area — meaning only just over half of our troops would actually come home when funding is cut.
Indeed, engaging U.S. forces in these three specific missions hardly seems to ratchet back our current mission there — to wage a counterinsurgency (much of which is counterterrorism) and train Iraqi security forces.
Why don’t its supporters highlight this element of Feingold’s bill? Why let it be read as a total funding-cut when on closer examination it looks more tempered and responsible?
I suspect the answer is that the average congressman — even somebody like Feingold — is more moderate than the average anti-war activist, and is leery of the kind of 100 percent draw-downs many activists favor. But Democrats are now subject to heavier pressure from the left than from the center. And it’s easier to shift your rhetoric in response than to shift the content of your ideas.
Still, Democrats would do well to maintain some resistance to that pressure, and publicize their draw-down plans as they stand. Failing to do so promotes undeserved criticism from moderates and Republicans, who paint Democrats as much more absolutist and feckless than they really are.
Eve Fairbanks is a assistant editor of The New Republic.
