With the president’s veto of the Surrender in Iraq Act, (and the failure by the House to override the veto) Congress can now get to work on a funding request for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Associated Press describes the conundrum in which the Democrats now find themselves, capturing the main question of the next month nicely:
The president won’t sign a bill that contains a firm deadline for troop withdrawals–even if those withdrawals are only triggered by the failure to achieve certain benchmarks. He will argue–rightly–that any such mandates hamper the effort to fight the war on the ground and impinge on his prerogatives as Commander in Chief. Yet such provisions would constitute the bare minimum that many liberal Democrats will require in exchange for their support the legislation. So if Democrats try to go without GOP support, they would be pursuing a very high-stakes confrontation with the president. Therefore, Democratic leaders are likely to do what they have been signaling: win over some Republican support for benchmarks, creating a bipartisan majority to deliver the bill to the president’s desk. The big question is to what degree such benchmarks will be mere guidelines, and to what extent they will be mandatory. If Democratic leaders play their cards right, there’s a surprising range of Republicans willing to discuss goals ‘with consequences.’ Roll Call notes that Trent Lott, Olympia Snowe, Adam Putnam, and Roy Blunt are all among those that have endorsed the concept:
This sheds more light on the nature of the battle: Democrats want triggers for reducing military commitments; some Republicans are willing to talk about cutting off political and reconstruction aid. Missing from the Roll Call piece is any comment from House Minority Leader Boehner, who continues to push hard for a clean funding bill. Boehner is important not just because he’s the GOP leader and will influence how many Republicans are willing to work with the Democrats, but also because he introduced a bill some time ago that has been cited as a possible preview of the guidelines the president might ultimately embrace. It’s worth noting that Boehner’s bill isn’t really about gauging progress on benchmarks, it’s more about requiring the administration to report regularly on how it views the progress on key questions. A Congressional Republican source expects movement soon from the White House, noting that the president has said several times in recent months that the Iraqi government must make progress toward benchmarks. This source argues that Republicans in Congress are pretty close to the president substantively, and that the president will continue to enjoy strong support from Congressional Republicans as he negotiates a funding package that’s ‘in the best interests of the American people and our troops on the ground.’ I won’t argue that, but the wild card remains the pressure on Democratic leaders to force a pullout. There continue to be those on the left who argue to cut funds immediately; there are those who want to ‘microfund’ the war–providing bare bones funding in installments, to starve the war effort. Ultimately, a funding compromise that wins the president’s signature will require Democratic leaders to deny their base of its primary goal–I’m not sure they’re prepared to do that yet. A late note: House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer ‘does not dispute‘ that the next version of the supplemental will not include a surrender timetable.
