Just to be clear, the Democrats controlled the Senate when the Iraq AUMF was voted on-- the Republicans were in the minority. After the 2000 election, the Senate was 50 - 50, with Cheney as the tie breaker. In 2001 Jeffords (R-VT) became an independent, but caucused with the Dems making it effectively 51 - 49 (D+I - R). It should also be noted that Jeffords voted against the AUMF.
Furthermore, there was a proposed amendment to the AUMF by Carl Levin that would have made the march to war a two-step process, and that would have required the UNSC to approve the use of force before Bush got authorization to do so. Bush then would have had to return to Congress to get authorization if the UNSC did not act accordingly. Only 4 of the Dems who voted for the AUMF also voted for the Levin amendment.
Now, I still blame Bush for this war. Maybe not 100% as you do, but he certainly gets the lion’s share. The Democrats could have blocked the AUMF, though. We don’t know what Bush would have done next, although it is likely that another vote would have occurred soon after the Nov 2002 election and the AUMF would have passed (assuming the Republicans would have still gained control of the Senate).
You are correct, although it doesn’t change my personal blame assessment. At the time of the 2002 AUMF vote, the administration was already asserting that they didn’t need Congressional authorization and could invade under the AUMF from the 1991 war, and I think they would have done so even had Congress not passed a new one. And it’s hard to imagine that they wouldn’t have simply had a revote after the 2002 election once they did have a majority, or that had the Democrats voted against the 2002 AUMF that it would have changed the outcome of the upcoming election.
So I don’t assign blame for Iraq on the Democrats, because I don’t think they could have stopped it. I do see their actions during that time as a true disappointment, a moment in history where they were given a test of character and of courage which they failed miserably.
As an aside, the GD thread I linked in my previous post (the closest thing I could find to a cite – the news articles linked within are no longer available online) was fascinating reading, just as a glimpse at the pre-war mindset. Heck, just browsing thread titles from GD, back in October, 2002 was quite interesting.
Politics has been defined as the business of being re elected.
When the war vote came up, Bush jammed distorted intelligence and huge pro war press coverage into a force that would be hard to stand up to. I wish our politicians could stand up to these forces but they don’t.
If you stand against a war once it goes hot ,you are under pressure . Some idiots will claim you do not support the troops, are against winning and whatever prejudicial crap they can come up with. If they had actually quickly accomplished something in Iraq ,those who stood up would have had their careers ended. Few had the guts to do it.
Because the Dems who voted against the wildly successful Gulf War got massacred. The Dems thought this would be similar and drank the kool-aid. Not that it mattered – even going along, they still got thrown out in 2002. That was the immediate goal of the Iraq War so it worked like a charm.
Your strategy would be much better than what Kerry tried to do. Still, there’s a problem in that it paints him (and Dems) in a very bad light – anyone who knew anything about Iraq knew what Bush was pedaling was absurd. The U.S. population was the only one in the world outside of some small fraction of the UK who were terrified of Saddam’s phantom WMDs. The Dems, with access to intelligence, experts, and presumably having some knowledge of the foreign press from staff members, should have been way ahead on this. So if they used your rationale, they’d basically be admitting they were ignorant. But it might have worked for the average voter.