Bush, Dems play chicken over war

While President Bush was busy entertaining the Queen this week, Democrats in Congress were… While President Bush was busy entertaining the Queen this week, Democrats in Congress were crafting a new war funding measure – one which the president will likely veto in the coming weeks, extending for what seems like eternity Congress and Bush’s game of chicken.

The Democrats’ new proposal suggests funding the war in installments, the first of which would end in July, after which Congress would have the authority to assess whether or not to continue funding, depending on whether conditions have improved, according to an Associated Press report.

If members of Congress agree to back the plan, as expected, a vote on the new bill could come as early as this week.

Republicans and other skeptics of the bill argue that it’s inappropriate to manage the war in 60 day installments, insisting that military leaders need to be able to make long term decisions about the war with the full amount of funding.

The bill is expected to face a hard time in the Senate, and would in all likelihood be vetoed by the president, whose spokespeople have already come out in strong opposition against the legislation.

If and when this bill fails, Democrats will be left with a difficult decision: How long do they continue to use a spending bill as leverage to achieve their – and that of the majority of the American people, according to the midterm elections – agenda?

If Bush carries on with his tirade of stubbornness – and at this point, really, what does he have to lose? – the Democrats will ultimately reach a position where they will be forced to cave in to Bush’s demands and fund a bill without any strings attached or not fund the bill at all, which would leave Democrats right where Bush and other Republicans want them: holding accountability for the failed war.

Unfortunately, our partisan political system and the presidency’s stretched powers are virtually blocking Democrats in Congress from achieving the promises that they offered voters this fall. And our military personnel have been placed squarely in the middle of this political game. If Democrats refuse to fund the war, they will leave the troops out to dry, an action that will face criticism from Republicans and the administration.

Bush’s recent actions have proven that he has no plans to concede or set a realistic endpoint in Iraq, so it is now up to the Republican presidential candidates to come to terms with the fact that a troop surge of only 30,000 is never going to realistically work, and that the Sunni and Shia factions of Iraq are currently in the throes of a civil war.

But instead, they seem to be playing the blame game, criticizing the current administration for mismanaging the war, but offering no new solutions on how to fix it. The Iraq War was hardly addressed in the Republican presidential debate last week, with candidates shifting the international focus away from Iraq – some even called for a military intervention in Iran.

Come on, have we learned any lessons from Iraq?

Until Republicans are capable of seeing the War in Iraq for what it is, Democrats will continue to offer the only fresh perspective on the conflict, which might pave the way for a 2008 presidential victory.

But January 20, 2009 – we’re counting down – is still a couple of years away, and until then, how long do we carry on the charade that there is a chance that we could win this war?