More than 39 months after U.S. forces invaded Iraq and on the day the Pentagon announced the death of the 2,500th American soldier in that conflict, Congress staged a phony debate on the war. It was a cynical and shameful spectacle choreographed by Republicans to portray Democrats as "cut and run'' wussies in the war against global terrorism. The debate, if you could call it that, had less to do with winning the war than with winning elections.
In the House, Rep. Charlie Norwood of Georgia set the ugly tone on the Republican side. "It is time to stand up and vote,'' he said. "Is it al-Qaida or is it America?''
Who's writing Norwood's lines these days - Ann Coulter?
Republicans timed the debate to capitalize on the death of al-Qaida leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and President Bush's surprise visit to Baghdad, developments that gave Bush a bump in his approval ratings. The Pentagon distributed "prep points'' for Republicans to use against opponents of the war, and the GOP House majority leader, John Boehner of Ohio, sent a memo to his members urging them to portray Democrats as too weak to be trusted with the national security challenges "America faces in the post-9/11 world.''
''Democrats are prone to waver endlessly about the use of force to protect American ideals,'' Boehner wrote in the memo. "Capitol Hill Democrats' only specific policy proposals are to concede defeat on the battlefield and instead merely manage the threat of terrorism and the danger it poses.''
It was a political set-up. The Republican-sponsored resolution in the House praises U.S. troops, calls the Iraq war part of the global fight against terrorism and rejects setting a withdrawal date for American troops. We know what the Republican attack line will be this fall - Democrats voted against a resolution supporting our troops.
There was enough demagoguery and partisan recriminations to lift the Capitol's dome, but when all was done and said, nothing had really changed. President Bush vowed again not to cut and run under political pressure, and congressional Republicans rallied around him despite the political risk of embracing a deeply unpopular war. Democrats, meanwhile, still can't agree on an Iraq policy.
Forty-two Democrats joined Republicans in voting for the House resolution. In the Senate, only six Democrats voted for a resolution - based on language lifted from a proposal by Sen. John Kerry and introduced by Republican Mitch McConnell to force Democrats against the wall - calling for the withdrawal of U. S. forces from Iraq by the end of the year.
The whole thing was enough to disgust even some Republicans. "It was ludicrous,'' said Rep. Wayne Gilchrist, a Maryland Republican who earned a Purple Heart and the Bronze Star in Vietnam. "It had nothing to do with saving lives. It had nothing to do with the war. It was one-upsmanship against the Democrats.''
For their part, Democrats are divided as ever on what the next step should be in Iraq. Most oppose setting a firm deadline for withdrawal, as Kerry proposes; some have called for a phased redeployment without a specific timetable; and others say the United States has no choice but to keep American boots on the ground until Iraq is able to take responsibility for its own security. No one, of course, can say when that day will come.
The risk for Democrats is that the division in their ranks over the war could tear the party apart, just as the Vietnam War did in the 1968 presidential election. It shattered the Democratic Party, gave Richard Nixon the presidency and the country four more years of war.
The political tensions among Democrats were on vivid display a few days before the congressional debate at a gathering of liberal activists in Washington. They booed and hissed Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, the presumed frontrunner for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2008, for her refusal to support a deadline for withdrawing U.S. troops or to acknowledge that she was wrong to have voted for the war.
Over chants of "Bring the troops home,'' she told the Take Back America conference that Democrats need to have a "difficult conversation'' about the war. "I have to just say it,'' she said. "I don't think it is a smart strategy either for the president to continue with his open-ended commitment, which I think does not put enough pressure on the new Iraqi government, nor do I think it is smart strategy to set a date certain. I do not agree that is in the best interests of our troops or our country.''
She didn't say what she would do about Iraq.
Clinton was followed by Kerry, who is considering another presidential bid after losing to Bush in 2004. The Massachusetts senator and Vietnam veteran won cheers and applause in calling for "a hard and fast deadline'' - Dec. 31, 2006 - for withdrawing U.S. troops.
He called Iraq a quagmire and compared it to Vietnam. "It was right to dissent from a war in 1971 that was wrong and could not be won,'' Kerry told the antiwar audience. "And now, in 2006, it is both a right and an obligation for Americans to stand up to a president who is wrong today (and) dissent from policies that are wrong today, and end a war in Iraq that weakens our nation each and every day we are in it.''
Unlike Hillary Clinton, Kerry rarely misses an opportunity these days to repudiate his vote for a Senate resolution authorizing Bush to use force in Iraq. In a swipe at Clinton, Kerry said, "It is essential to acknowledge that the war itself was a mistake - to say the simple words that contain more truth than pride ... It was wrong and I was wrong to vote for that Iraqi war resolution.''
For Democrats, the question is whether they are wrong in assuming that they can win elections by opposing a war they first supported and without offering an exit strategy short of sounding retreat.
