Senate Republicans have already shown that they're smarter than the Bush administration. Where the Bush administration often turns defeat into catastrophe, Senate Republicans have so far turned the potential catastrophe of the anti-surge resolution into a mere defeat. Passage of the Senate resolution against the surge would be a catastrophe for the Bush administration even though it's "non-binding. " The catastrophe would be on two levels. First, the anti-surge resolution would represent a no confidence vote that would serve as an official acknowledgement of popular opposition to the surge and would further isolate the Bush administration and their neo-con constituency. The public has already declared "no confidence" in the Bush administration's conduct of the Iraq War and the Senate resolution would turn that public opinion into an official government act. "Non-binding" or not, the Senate resolution would confirm the Bush administration's position as a renegade government working against the public consensus on matters of war and peace.
Second, passing the anti-surge resolution would confirm Congressional Democrats as the most important vehicle for broadly legitimate government on the federal level. In many ways, the Bush administration has abandoned the effort to represent the larger American population and is focusing instead on being the "representative" of a "little America" comprised of neo-con think tank operatives, talk radio, and right-wing voters. Like Nancy Pelosi's trip to Iraq, the surge resolution is a cautious effort by the Democrats to provide some representation for the whole population. Passing the surge resolution would have put the Bush administration's abandonment of the broader public into much bolder relief.
By delaying the debate on the surge, the Senate Republicans have dampened the damage being done to Republicans by the "surge." Though the public still overwhelmingly opposes the surge, the Republicans have kept the Senate from enacting that popular opposition into legislation however unbinding. Likewise, Republican delaying tactics have at least delayed the time when Harry Reid, Dick Durbin, and Chuck Shumer become the credible voices of American consensus. Although "the debate about the debate" is a defeat for the Republicans because it keeps the unpopularity of the surge before the American public, Republican success in delaying the debate keeps the defeat from becoming a disaster.
The skill of the Republicans in limiting the damage is no surprise. The new Senate minority leader is Kentucky's Mitch McConnell, widely known as one of the smartest people in American politics even though he doesn't have a high profile media presence. Here in Kentucky, McConnell has run rings around the Democrats for more than two decades and built the Kentucky Republican Party from almost nothing to a position of near-dominance. McConnell has lost some of his magic in the wake of the fumbling of his hand-picked governor Ernie Fletcher, but Kentucky Democrats still fear him about as much as Civil War union general George McClellan feared Robert E. Lee.
It is important to remember, however, that Lee eventually lost. The tremendous strategic advantages of the American side outweighed Lee's defensive brilliance. It appears that the same is the case with the Republican Party over the next two years. By pushing the surge in defiance of most of American society, the Bush administration has put Congressional Republicans in an extremely disadvantageous position. The best they'll be able to do is to continue the manuevering needed to make their defeats smaller.
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Speaking of the “troop surge”, it’s funny to note that some Democrats, (For example Rep. Reyes, and Sens. Clinton and Reid) supported a troop surge only a couple month ago. Then when the Bush Administration came out with a plan nearly identical to the one Reyes offered, it was roundly poopooed by the left. In reading some of your past posts, you are included in this dishonest bunch, since you have made several mentions of the fact that there were not enough troops in place. To give you credit, you did dismiss the idea before the Bush Administration suggested it, you dismissed it when the Weekly Standard suggested it, saying that an increase of troops in Baghdad probably would not work. Not much difference tho, when Dems knee jerk to the President, you knee-jerk to the whole right wing. Some Examples:
http://cariccomment.blogspot.com “Half Assed War Weakens US” 8.23.05
There's nothing more clear than that the Iraq war has weakened the United States. Deciding that they could wage a minimalist war, the Bush administration launched a major invasion without building up the American military first. Then, the Bush administration failed to increase American forces in Iraq after the first fiascos of the occupation--the failures to quell looting, contol borders, clean up ammo dumps, and fully occupy restive Sunni areas. Because of the half-assed character of the occupation, ever larger streams of militant fighters began to come to Iraq to fight the harried occupation forces. Still refusing to increase the American commitment to Iraq, the Bush administration now finds that controlling the continually growing insurgency requires the efforts of most of the active American military… Fed-up with the scatter-shot lies of Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld, the broken promises of first military and then political magic, and the pointless sweeps of insurgents who return a week later, the American public now won't allow the U. S. to increase its forces enough to actually defeat the Sunni insurgents.
In this one, you say that the Bush admin’s failure to increase troops is tantamount to treason because it keeps an active insurgency going!
http://cariccomment.blogspot.com “Treason and the Iraq War” 3.12.06
“When the insurgency started gaining momentum in Spring 2004, the Bush administration was faced with a relatively stark choice. They could dramatically increase troop and support levels or they could seek to tackle the insurgency with the same resources that had failed to keep the insurgency from growing in the first place. Severe costs were entailed by each choice. Given that Gen. Shinseki, the Democrats, Sen. McCain, and Sen. Hagel had all already called for more troops, increasing troop strength would have meant admitting that the Bush administration had grossly underestimated the dangers of the invasion, the strengths of the insurgency, and popular hostility to the occupation. To make such an indirect admission would have been tantamount to confessing that they had mismanaged the invasion and occupation, and would have cost George Bush re-election. So, the Bush administration ‘stayed the course.’”
http://red-state.blogspot.com “Victory versus Reality” 9.14.06
“Somebody needs to tell the generals. Unfortunately, the word on victory has not seeped back to American commanders in al-Anbar, the rebellious North Carolina-sized Iraqi province where we have thirty thousand troops. According to Gen. Richard Zilmer, that's enough to fulfill the current mission of training Iraqi troops, but not nearly enough for defeating the insurgency in Anbar.”
There are also numerous other side mentions that Bush did not put in enough troops and did not have the courage to ask for more. Well now he has, and your self fulfilling prophecy came true because the left hates anything he tries. And your own writing proves it.
check and mate
It's interesting to me that you take no position yourself. Was Bush right in 2004 and 2005 or was McCain, Hillary Clinton, and myself? What were you thinking in 2004 and 2005.
My position in 2005 was that 30,000 more troops needed to be deployed just to Anbar province to sustain an offensive against the Sunni insurgents. That's a lot more than the 4,000 more troops that President Bush is sending to Anbar now even though conditions have deteriorated further since 2005.
At the same time, it has become clear that my 30,000 troop idea was an underestimate of the actual need for additional American troops in Anbar (at least according to Petraeus' counter-insurgency doctrine). I corrected that mistake in my late 2006 posts.
Obviously, conditions have deteriorated in Iraq and my estimates for 2005 no longer hold. That's one of the reasons why I currently think it would be best to withdraw from Iraq and put the U. S. on a war footing in case hundreds of thousands of American troops need to go back. Unfortunately however, the failure of the Bush administration to take the war seriously for the last four years has made it impossible to be realistic.
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