IRAQ IS looking a lot like Vietnam these days and not just because Americans are dying there for a cause the locals don't believe in, sapping our moral standing and military might to the benefit of our enemies in the region and the consternation of our allies around the world. Increasingly, the domestic political struggle has come to resemble that of the late Vietnam era, with the White House seeking to commit ever more money and manpower to the conflict, and perhaps widen it to neighboring states, while Congress wrings its hands despite a popular mandate to end the war.
We're at a point in Iraq where almost everybody agrees that victory, as we initially defined it, is beyond reach. And, as in Vietnam, the big question is whether to bring the troops home or escalate the conflict in hopes of improving the security situation to such a point that we can at least withdraw on favorable terms. But, as in Vietnam, if the security situation is so bad that we're searching for the exit and the political aspirations of the populace are broadly opposed to our own goals for the region, then any gains from a temporary escalation will not survive our withdrawal.
One might hope that the administration has learned this lesson, consisting as it does of men who cut their political teeth in the Vietnam era. But it seems instead that the lesson they have drawn from Vietnam is that, in matters of war and peace, the president must never bow to domestic political pressure, lest he compromise American security by permitting those less resolute than himself to put an untimely end to some critical conflict.
Such is well and good if that president is Abraham Lincoln. Or Franklin Roosevelt. Or even George H.W. Bush. But if that president is George W. Bush, he had best put aside his pretensions to greatness and heed the national consensus, for history reserves the right to lead a democratic nation in a war against its will for men of greater vision than him. Bush probably believes that the war in Iraq sufficiently critical to American interests that it must be continued whatever the voters may think of it. But the reality is that this war was the pet project of his own administration and that the worst consequences of failure could have been avoided had we simply declined to invade Iraq in the first place.
So what are the Democrats to do? The cynical course would be to acquiesce in the escalation, secure in the knowledge that another 20,000 troops are unlikely to turn the tide and that Bush will be whipped by history for his failure to end a hopeless conflict of his own making. To allow Bush his troop surge would also deny him the personal exit strategy, as it were, of claiming that victory might have been won had only the Democrats stiffened their spines at the critical moment.
But to give Bush enough rope to hang himself would also doom countless American troops, a moral failure almost as great as the decision to send them to Iraq in the first place, while delaying the resolution of a conflict that has become a major strategic liability to the United States. If the Democrats truly believe that this war should end, they must use all means at their disposal to end it as soon as possible. This would include the congressional power of the purse, which should be used to withhold funding for the war when the White House next requests it.
For the moment, the Democrats have contented themselves with half hearted measures such as last week's non-binding resolution opposing the deployment of more troops to Iraq. By their very nature, such actions serve not to end the war, but merely to shame an unpopular president while forcing Republican legislators to make an uncomfortable choice between their party line and the will of the voters that this war come to an end. Much as the Republicans used to call symbolic votes on issues like gay marriage in order to make the Democrats squirm, so the Democrats have found in Iraq an issue on which their political rivals are divided from the voting public and they appear intent on squeezing maximum advantage from it.
House Minority Leader John Boehner recently denounced the resolution as "a political charade lacking both the seriousness and gravity of the situation it is meant to address" and he's right. If the war in Iraq is in fact a moral and strategic disaster crying out for resolution, then the Democrats cannot treat it as some political voodoo doll to be poked at whenever they want to hurt their Republican rivals. They must do their duty to the troops, the voters and the national interest and bring an end to this war as soon as they get the chance.
Alec Solotorovsky's column appears Thursdays in The Cavalier Daily. He can be reached at asolotorovsky@cavalierdaily.com.
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