Is Compromise Really An Anti-Surge Resolution?Opponents of the president’s “surge” can be forgiven for reading over the compromise resolution by Sens. John Warner (R-VA) and Carl Levin (D-MI) and humming a Buzzcocks tune: “What Do I Get?”
Sure, the resolution “disagrees with the ‘plan’ to augment our forces by 21,500.” But it’s an open question as to why.
In key passages, the resolution endorses the terms of the argument for the surge laid out by President Bush. It contends a “failed state in Iraq would present a threat to regional and world peace”; seeks an Iraq that can “sustain, govern and defend itself and serve as an ally in the war on extremists”; rules out cutting off funding for the war at some future point; lays out an open-ended set of military goals in Iraq and then says Bush should stick to those only “as much as possible”; explicitly rules out near-term troop reductions; and, somewhat egregiously, says it doesn’t mean to “question or contravene” Bush’s commander-in-chief authority.
To read the resolution as an argument against the surge, it presents a rather incoherent case. In laying out such high stakes for the war and presenting a rather extensive series of military options still on the table, it begs the question of why a troop infusion wouldn’t be helpful — or, at the very least, doesn’t present an obvious case for why escalation is the wrong move. By contrast, the earlier Biden-Hagel text explicitly contended that escalation was contrary to “the national interest” of the U.S. Regardless of what one thinks of the merits of that statement, it’s at least internally consistent.
Indeed, some Democratic senators are already blasting the resolution. In a Daily Kos diary, Sen. Russell Feingold (D-WI) calls it “flawed and unacceptable.”
Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT), a presidential candidate, also rejected the compromise, saying it was “essentially an endorsement of the status quo.” We’ll be updating you throughout the day on what other anti-surge senators think, and how the White House parries this latest move.