1 Boring Old Man

The Antiwar Rallying Point

Two things are now abundantly clear about the future of U.S. policy toward Iraq. First, majorities in both houses of Congress have lost faith in President Bush’s approach to the war. Second, the president will do all he can to resist changing his strategy by trying to split his critics into ineffectual factions.

Bush’s choice is certainly bad for opponents of the war, but it’s also bad for American foreign policy.

The president is inviting a full-scale confrontation over his warmaking powers in the expectation that the Democrats’ narrow majorities will deprive them of the votes they need to win such a fight. He is ready to split the country rather than give any ground to those who ask whether it’s wise to risk ensnaring American troops in a Sunni-Shiite civil war.

The challenge to critics of the war is to make the debate about Bush, not about themselves, and to make clear that the president has rebuffed all efforts to pursue a bipartisan path out of Iraq, beginning with his rejection of the core recommendations of the Iraq Study Group, headed by James A. Baker III and Lee Hamilton.

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"The refusal of the administration to try to work with others to resolve this in a responsible manner has created a very polarized atmosphere," Van Hollen said. "They’ve refused to listen to anyone else."

That should be the central theme of the president’s critics because it’s true — and because it offers the best rallying cry for those seeking to change a disastrous policy.

When I started reading this [E.J. Dionne Jr. oped in today’s Washington Post], I thought of it as another "what we should do in Iraq" piece that will get lost in the sea of other "what we should do i Iraq" pieces generated by well-meaning but frustrated columnists and pundits. But this one is a little different. It doesn’t exactly say this, but this is where it took my mind, the problem isn’t Iraq, it’s Bush.

Dionne suggests that the theme of the anti-war campaign should focus on the reality that Bush won’t listen to anyone, the Congresss, the Iraq Study Group, the country. I’d take Dionne a step further, why should we listen to him at all? Congress just did a big thing, passed a resolution against his "Surge Plan." But why bother? His response was to say, "fund my Surge Plan."

I say that Congress has an obligation to evaluate the "Surge Plan" based on its merits. If it’s no good, don’t fund it. Bush says withholding funds is not supporting the troops. I say evaluate what is supportive of the troops independent from what Bush says, and do what’s right.

So, I kind of agree with Dionne that "’They’ve refused to listen to anyone else.’ That should be the central theme of the president’s critics because it’s true." I think he’s on the right track, but only part of the way home. Ignore Bush altogether instead of reacting to him. He’s superfluous. If he remains obstructionistic [which he will], ignore him some more. If anything is clear about the direction the country needs to take, it’s that President Bush needs not to be "the decider" – not even "a decider." If he blocks what Congress does, just do it again. He’s lost the right to have an opinion in the matter. True, he retains some power, but so did the Southern Governors during the Civil Rights Movement. In the end, our strategy then was to simply ignore them and just keep on keeping on – just do the right thing.