Let’s assume that what appears to be happening is happening, and the Democrats will control the House, but the Republicans retain the Senate.
Is it possible for the Democrats to force an end to the Iraq war through their control of the House?
Will they do so before the 2008 elections?
No and no. How could they? They aren’t going to cut funds for the troops.
I suppose they could try to rescind the AUMF but without veto-proof majorities in both houses that would just be an exercise in futility.
To answer your first question, maybe, theoretically.
On the legal side of things, as President, Bush has the authority to conduct military operations in Iraq as a result of a joint resolution passed in 2002 authorizing the use of military force. Said resolution (pursuant to earlier legislation) requires the President to make a report to Congress once every 60 days concerning progress and/or events in regard to said use of force in Iraq.
My quick reading of the resolution does not however show me that there is an “expiration date.” Some legislation has “expiration dates” some does not.
For example the USAPATRIOT act specifically expires after a set number of years. Upon expiration it must be reauthorized by Congress. If the resolution for force was structured in a similar way then the Democrats could prevent reauthorization of the joint resolution on Iraq by blocking said reauthorization in the House; then the legislation would expire naturally and the President would be in legal limbo in regard to having forces in Iraq.
It’s not really clear if, while in the legal limbo, the Congress has any constitutional powers to basically order Bush to transport U.S. soldiers out of Iraq.
What control of the House does do is give the Democrats “power of the purse” so to speak. Spending bills have to originate in the House, and both houses of congress have to approve the federal budget each year (the 2007 budget has already been approved–and it had huge appropriations for Iraq IIRC.)
To legally end the authority of the President to conduct military operations in Iraq a resolution would have to pass in both houses basically revoking the earlier resolution. Even if the Democrats seize both Houses there’s not much indication such a measure would have enough support to pass. Several Democrat Congressmen still support the war and several support the idea of a timetable withdrawal not an abrupt end.
To use the power of the purse to end the war would be more likely (and Murtha has said he plans to do just that) however as I said above, not all Democrats oppose the war and the moderate position in the Dem party is a time table withdrawal, not an abrupt forced ending and cutting of funding to the military while it serves in the field.
Cutting off the “troops” would be disastrous politically and would do quite a lot to hurt the Democrats chances of doing well in 2008.
A similar incident occurred during the Presidency of Theodore Roosevelt. He planned to sail his “Great White Fleet” around the globe to show off U.S. naval power which he had worked since before his Presidency to increase. The Congress did not wish to fund it, so Roosevelt basically said something to the effect of, “I have enough money to send the fleet halfway around the world, so it is on the hands of Congress if they wish to strand the fleet,” the Congress eventually relented and approved funding for the globe-spanning publicity trip.
So the full answer is–yes, theoretically. But a serious attempt would result in governmental gridlock and multiple crises in government itself. The practical answer is no/no, there isn’t enough support for such an effort even within the Democratic party, many of the Democrats as I’ve said favor a structured withdrawal not an abrupt one.
I don’t think that anybody would favour an ‘unstructured withdrawel’
In some ways, from my limited understanding of the US constitutional setup, it is easier for a president to act sensibly when he faces opposition from the Senate, Congress or both.
Given that the Dems have the House, Shrub now has a compelling excuse/reason for doing the sensible thing.
My $100 is on partition
We’re getting in to a separate issue here, but partition does seem the most wise. Iraq, as we know it, has never been an entity that was governed democratically. The multi-ethnic and multi-religious groups lived together through force for as long as I’m aware, first from the Ottomans, then the British, then Saddam.
There’s a few reasons partitioning, at least a true partition, will be troublesome. A big one is where the lines are actually drawn, all three groups will of course demand lines are drawn in a manner that favors them and maximizes their control over valuable oil fields. The Kurds being given independence threatens serious aggressive action from both Turkey and Iran.
A looser form of federalism would probably be the best solution politically; it may even be workable within the constraints of the current Iraqi constitution.
Yes, you are right about the Kurds, add Syria into the equation with Iran, Iraq and Turkey.
I am not sure about ‘force’ - but reading a book by a UK guy who went into the Marsh Arab’s territory with Wilfred Thesinger makes me sympathetic to draining the region.
I am not sure about the Kurdistan problem, on Monday I found that my hair was being cut by a Kurd, so I stopped pontificating.
Somehow I reckon that Turkey would be better off without the PKK, and it would be smart to point out that the only known oil reserves are in Northern Iraq - my couturist had the impression that Kurdistan was boiling with oil.
Since Iraqi Kurdistan has been functioning as a separate state under US protection since 1991, that bit has been ‘federalized’.
I suspect, that like most people, nobody has a clue of what is realy going on.
Is it possible that they could “encourage” a change of policy through their investigatory powers? It does not strike me as inconceivable that the warmongers might favor an about face if that might stave off or limit the scope of investigations into the decision to launch this escapade.
I’m not sure what will happen but I think the Dems have to bring pressure on the president to structure some definite time frame for withdrawal. If they don’t do that within the next two years and really assert themselves on that issue they will be perceived as wimps and/or liars.
Politically speaking what would be best for them is to still be in Iraq in two years with the public still blaming the president and the pubbies. That being the case the president may use them to find a way out in order to help the nest GOP candidate.
Personally I favor immediate withdrawal. I don’t see anything positive being accomplished for us or them by our presence there. I don’t see that happening. We’ll have to invest a few thousand more lives in some lame attempt to save face.
It makes me sick.
I just don’t see how they can in a Vietnam-style manner, because they’ve made such a stink about things like body armor, steel plating on humvees, BushCo. lowballing the commitment, etc. The only way Bush’s Iraq war can be halted in its tracks is to starve it, and that will play so disastrously, I don’t think the Dems could stomach it. I wouldn’t put it beneath BushCo. to run a newly-impovershed effort in Iraq hard into the dust, railing all the while against Democrat depravation and its negative impact on the troops. It’ll be our soldiers caught in the middle of a political pissing contest, and I hope the Dems at least have the collective decency and strategic intelligence to avoid that.
I think the best bet is for both parties to call for Rumsfeld’s head, and have the new guy implement a withdrawl plan that actually utlilizes the input of the military.
sorry, deprivation. bit of a slip…
A serious attempt at investigating contractor abuses might convince Bush to abandon the file cabinets of Iraq. It wouldn’t do to have the misdeeds of his corporate cronies exposed.
Yep, I think it’s likely the Democrats will try to force a timetable. (And by the way, I’m assuming, contrary to the OP, that the Democrats ‘n’ friends will have the Senate as well.) Politically speaking, a timetable is the perfect temporizing strategy. It seems to throw the ball into Bush’s court, while giving a bone to those Americans (a majority) who want an end to the whole thing.
But realistically, what does a timetable accomplish? It’s hard for me to imagine what sort of metrics could be put in place that Iraq could actually hit, in any reasonable timeframe. From this perspective, the timetable approach just looks like a stalling tactic by the Democrats, and nothing like an actual solution. I don’t doubt that Bush will go along with the timetable approach – what does he have to lose by it?
I think it’s safe at this point to assume that the Democrats have won control of the Senate. However, the basic point in the OP is still valid: do the Democrats want a speedy end to the war, and if so, how will they make it happen?
I still think they’ll opt for the timetable approach. Even though no one has any idea how to make it succeed, no one yet wants to admit defeat.
I’d like to see the Democrats make the first use of the War Powers Resolution, because I’ve always wondered if that would stand up in court.
Realistically, though, the Democrats couldn’t end the war even if they had a supermajority in Congress, because that would require cutting the purse strings. Doing that would cause the death of the Democratic Party forever. They can, however, exert significant influence over the policy making. No more unilateralism and approval after the fact by a rubber-stamp Congress. Bush is now forced to work with them, which may result in a shortening of the war.
One can only hope.
How so? Cutting the purse strings would oblige Bush to either risk a Constitutional crisis, or bring the troops home. If he did the latter, Iraq would be forgotten within a week.
Which is not to say that I think the Democrats will cut the purse strings. Regrettably, I see this whole thing dragging futilely on for another year or more while people grope uselessly for a winning formula.
An investigation into the contractors like Haliburton would show people the military -industrial fleecing of our treasury.This is a likely first step. Perhaps it would get fence sitters to go against the war. Enough public dissatisfaction would go a long way to ending it. The Repubs are reading the tea leaves now and see an increasingly large national hatred of the war and their position.
Two reasons. First, I think that Bush would precipitate a Constitutional crisis over this, because a very good argument can be made that the WPR is itself unconstitutional. Second, he could abandon them in place and force Congress to keep paying. If they didn’t he could say that Congress abandoned the troops and sentenced them to death but he came to their rescue. The merest inkling of something like that would destroy the Democrats for all time. Congress can influence this, but they cannot effect changes like that directly because strictly speaking it’s not in their purview to do so. And in order to effect those changes they have to walk a very fine line lest they get pegged as what the Republicans have been saying they are: weak on the military.
The Democrats’ position is still a precarious one, and it wouldn’t take much to push it back right in 2008. Something like this, played wrongly, could do it.