House Democrats will pass a symbolic resolution today condemning the Bush administration’s “surge” of U.S. forces in Iraq, but both parties face tougher decisions in the weeks ahead on how to refocus American policy in the Middle East.
For most of the week, the House has debated a resolution condemning Bush’s proposal to send 21,500 more combat soldiers into Iraq. A similar measure was derailed in the Senate just as debate began in the House.
The House’s nonbinding resolution will pass easily, its supporters say. Several Republicans have split from their party over the president’s proposed surge.
“We want the president to succeed, but we are disappointed our hopes and good intentions for Iraq remain unrealized,” Rep. Tom Davis, R-Va., said from the House floor Wednesday.
Davis is a likely Senate candidate if John Warner, R-Va., retires next year. He has argued publicly that Republicans should move further left to attract suburban professionals.
But some conservative Republicans are disillusioned with the Iraq war, too.
“Conservatives have traditionally been the biggest critics of nation building, as President Bush was when he ran for the White House in 2000,” Rep. John Duncan Jr.,
R-Tenn., said earlier this month. “We need the more humble foreign policy he advocated then, or we need to tell the people to forget about their Social Security because we are giving a blank check to the Pentagon.”
Republican leaders say that the nonbinding resolution, though symbolic, is only a first step toward cutting off funds for the war. The Democrats deny the charge vehemently.
Nonetheless, the Democrats face tough questions in the weeks ahead, when Bush will introduce his supplemental military budget.
Some, like Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., have called for an immediate end to the war in Iraq. Others, like House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., have called for a “redeployment” and an emphasis on diplomacy.
The Democrats believe they won last fall’s elections because public opinion soured on the war. But antiwar voters have grown impatient: On Thursday, about two dozen Montgomery County antiwar activists occupied Maryland Democratic Sen. Barbara Mikulski’s office to protest her reluctance to cut off funds to the Iraqi war.
