I've never been very enthusiastic about advocating withdrawal from Iraq; it's the right thing, certainly, but all our options are terrible, and withdrawal just happens to be the least terrible.
I've been far more emphatic about the less ambiguous and much more important matter of war with Iran. Where Iraq was a catastrophic mistake, attacking Iran would be an apocalyptic blunder. Despite the skepticism of some (skepticism I hope is justified), it sure looks to me like the administration is aggressively pushing the unthinkable. In that light, I think James Fallows is exactly right (hat tip: David Kurtz):
Deciding what to do next about Iraq is hard — on the merits, and in the politics. It’s hard on the merits because whatever comes next, from “surge” to “get out now” and everything in between, will involve suffering, misery, and dishonor. It’s just a question of by whom and for how long....Fallows argues that the most important thing Congress can do right now is pass a resolution "making clear that it will authorize no money and provide no endorsement for military action against Iran."
By comparison, Iran is easy: on the merits, in the politics. War with Iran would be a catastrophe that would make us look back fondly on the minor inconvenience of being bogged down in Iraq.
Matt Yglesias takes comfort from Schumer's comments on Iran, and it is encouraging in the sense that he's clearly not giving Bush a pass this time:
...you never give someone who has been so bad the second benefit of the doubt. I think anything the President asks for with Iran is going to be received with extreme dubiousness, certainly by me, by the Democratic Senate and by the American people. I mean he says there are weapons of mass destruction in Iran, people are going to think twice before believing it. If he says this is an immediate danger to the US, people are going to think twice before believing it. If he says military force is the only way to deal with this problem, people are going to thing 20 times before believing it.Good for him.
But here's what worries me about Schumer's comments: he's prepared to oppose an AUMF when and if it comes up, but there's nothing there about pre-emptively opposing action. This line in particular is disheartening: "Should he try to go into Iran without an AUMF will do everything we can to try to stop that." Well, fine...but by then it'll be too late. The time to act is now.
What they should do now is block funding for an Iran invasion, as Fallows suggests; rescind the Iraq AUMF (but skip the part about impeachment, which would be an obviously empty threat); and, most importantly, hold hearings (hat tip; Digby).
The hearings are most important because realistically, they're the precondition for the other two. We need aggressive hearings (on the intelligence, on the diplomatic alternatives, on the consequences of military action, on the executive's obligation to consult Congress before committing to action) to solidify public opposition to attacking Iran, and to make sure that any case the administration tries to make is made in our forum on our terms. Every attempt at an end-run--selective leaks to Fox News, e.g.--should get them a truckload of subpoenas. Every sign of manipulated intelligence should be trotted out for all the world to see.
The reality is that even if the Democrats are completely united and work to head off a military strike before it happens, they still can't stop it; the best they can do is make the political consequences of an attack so steep that even Cheney thinks twice before doing anything completely batshit crazy. The only hope of having even that slim chance is if they act now, before the administration once again creates its own reality.
[That's all, folks]
|