“Post-Surge” Policy on Its Way

The Busheviks are rapidly discovering that they didn’t have until September after all. The main thrust of a progress report on the Surge in Iraq-Nam was leaked to the press earlier this week. Not one of the goals the White House had hoped to achieve has been met. That is the very definition of failure. Individual Republican Senators with more foreign policy expertise than the entire administration combined have decided a new course is needed. The “Post-Surge” strategy will hit Washington this month, not in September.

The interim report, which is required by law, should reach Capital Hill tomorrow or Friday (bet on Friday for PR reasons). This coincides with the Senate’s debate on the $649 billion defense appropriation bill. As part of that debate, the Democrats are offering an amendment that would require the military to begin withdrawing troops in 120 days. That amendment isn’t going to pass, but it has sparked some other ideas.

Senators Susan Collins (R-ME) and Ben Nelson (D-NE) have a proposal that would require US troops to abandon combat missions and concentrate on training Iraqis, tracking down al-Qaeda fighters (as if they could be distinguished from others shooting at the Yanks) and securing the borders of Iraq (a job too big for the numbers present). Despite the flaws, it isn’t a withdrawal, so Mr. Bush might be able to live with it, but it would move US troops out of harm’s way. The only combat deaths that would ensue would be in situations where the opposition sought out combat. Americans are much more forgiving about deaths in defense of US bases.

Senator Collins, along with Lamar Alexander (R-TN), Judd Gregg (R-NH), Robert Bennett (R-UT), John Sununu (R-NH) and Pete Domenici (R-NM), have said they’d like Mr. Bush to adopt the findings and proposals of the Iraq Study Group (remember that?). That had as a redeployment date spring 2008. Richard Lugar (R-IN), George Voinovich (R-OH) Chuck Hagel (R-NE) and Olympia Snowe (R-ME) have independently said redeployment is due.

The GOP in the Senate hasn’t entirely collapsed. The Busheviks can still count on some big wheels like Ted Stevens (R-AK), Christopher Bond (R-Mo), Jon Kyl (R-AZ) and James Inhofe (R-OK). Senator Kyl has already put down a marker, “If Democrats use the defense authorization bill to pander to the far left at the expense of our national security, they should expect serious opposition from Republicans.” Far left? The far left didn’t lose the Iraq-Namese war, didn’t establish torture as an American legal practice or spy on US citizens without warrants. That was the dangerous right, an ever shrinking faction of the Senate.

© Copyright 2007 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Fedora Linux.

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