The Morning After

The conclusion to my awkwardly timed Election Day column:

Bush can stay the course right up through January 2009. He won't be on the ballot again, and unlike most recent presidents he's not angling to put his vice president into the White House. To be sure, if Bush persists no matter how unpopular his policies become, this will set Democrats up nicely for 2008. Republican presidential contenders will find themselves mired in infighting as many abandon the president in order to stay viable for the general election. Others will attempt to inspire the base by sticking with Bush, only to tar themselves in the eyes of moderates and independents. If I were Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama or whomever else, I'd look at it as a very promising situation.

What this won't do, however, is improve the situation in Iraq. We seem doomed, one way or another, to at least two more years of futile fighting there. Two more years of wasted money, wasted lives, and perhaps most of all wasted time -- time that could have been used to start the hard work of putting America's foreign policy back together again. Time we can't really afford to spare. It's a horrible scenario. Indeed, it's a scenario that is poised to inspire Americans to vote in drove for the Democrats today. What it isn't is a scenario a Democratic win will help us avoid.

I think Suzanne Nossel has good morning-after advice to go along with my gloom-and-doom.

Comments

We will not be in Iraq for two more years; we will be driven out long before that.

Posted by Jose Padilla | November 7, 2006 11:39 AM

I think our emphasis has to be on two things: 1) the 2008 election, and 2) preventing war with Iran. As Matt states, there's not a lot we can do directly in the next two years, short of the politically disastrous option of witholding funding for the Iraq war. Therefore, we need to work hard to get all the lies and corruption associated with the war out into the open in order to discredit Republicans and set the stage for the 2008 election.

This will have the side benefit of making it more difficult for Bush to make some kind of idiotic move against Iran, such as air strikes or a naval blockade. I agree that this means two extra years bogged down in Iraq. But, considering how much worse Bush could make things in the next two years vis-a-vis Iran, or how much worse it would be to have McCain as president in 2008, its a small price to pay.

Posted by Jim W | November 7, 2006 11:51 AM

If we gain the House, at the first opportunity:

1) Legislative reform initiated in both houses. Dull stuff, but the abuses that have ruled have to end.

2) Oversight. Reclaiming the power ceded to W. (Who thinks that were a Democrat to be a elected president that Republicans would really want a Democratic president to have the quasi-dictatorial power that W pretends to?)

Hearings into abuses, which I'd love, just aren't gonna happen. W will invoke Executive Privilege for 7 year old toilet paper, and the country will be faced with the prospect of 1 house of Congress wanting to impeach while the other house is over on Pennsylvania Ave on knee pads.

Posted by Jeffrey Davis | November 7, 2006 11:59 AM

I think there's at least one other weapon in Congress's political arsenal: hearings into the necessity of establishing a draft. "If you refuse to consider a timed withdrawal, we must consider expanding the force to a size that has a chance of success."

Posted by dj moonbat | November 7, 2006 12:03 PM

She utterly ignores the most-important reason to hope the GOP is routed today: to curb executive abuse of power (Jeffrey said this too).

She's correct that Iraq'll remain a GOP province for a while. But the ability of a somewhat engaged Congress to rein in The Administration & its excesses -- as opposed to one wedded to abnegating its duties -- is key. If we can get two years of non-monopoly government, at least we might stop out-of-control spending, commensurate debt, and the growing dictatorhsip on Pennsylvania Ave.

The Iraq nonsense'll end someday; we may never be able to turn back another two years of Constitution-trampling.

Posted by Mike | November 7, 2006 12:13 PM

May I suggest something counter-intuitive?

I doubt that the situation in Iraq will remain the same for the next two years.

We ve already gone through two phases of the war, perhaps three. Initially, we had a lull, when poor American handling and lack of governing power exacerbated a process that would have started either way of groups getting organized.

Then, after 6 months or so, we had an ever-growing insurgency, which was really not one but depending on your view, two or three insurgencies. You had a Sunni insurgency, a Shia insurgeny under Sadr and a radical islamist component.

The goal in that period was to destabilize the American occupation and any sort of central authority.

Then, after the election of 2005, we are essentially faced with a civil war in which an indeciferable to us number of factions fought over neighborhoods, tribes and any kind of political and geographical unit. During this phase, I don't think there was a n insurgency gunning for the americas as much as there were various factions vying to establish strongholds and consolidate local power centers for themselves.

I do not think that this phase will go on for ever. You cannot ethnically cleanse for ever. At some point, various groups will consolidate power over certain areas and it will become more obvious who is or who are the winners. The winners being more clear cut and well defined may allow for negotiations with representatives who actually represent actual power holders instead of the empty suits we had in earlier rounds.All the same, it's more likely that we will transition to a different phase of the conflict in which more organized force will be among the different factions as they vie not for local zones of control but for the country. If this is the case, I think that Americans might possess more leverage to act as arbitreurs or pivotal actors in favor of one or the other group.

Please don't take the above analysis as being set in stone. I haven't given as much thought as I d like and I would like to chew on it some more. So can the loyal readers of MY. :)

I

Posted by Nick Kaufman | November 7, 2006 12:14 PM

Nossel is underestimating the potential for a Democratic House and more evenly divided Senate to take control of the national debate on Iraq, and the overall management of Iraq policy, and to force the hand of the Bush administration. The hearings on waste, fraud and abuse can help in accomplishing this larger political task, but they are not the chief task itself.

As frighteningly risk-fraught this course of action might seem to Democrats, who have fallen into the political pattern of laying low and allowing the Republicans to destroy themselves, the option of passive sucees via Republican incompetence is no longer available - because the political imbalance that underlies that tactic is disappearing as of today. The new Congress will have no political choice but to act boldly and resolutely, or suffer the political consequences.

If the public were allowed to vote today to remove Bush from office, they would be doing so in overwhelming numbers. The next best thing they can do is clean house in the Congress. They are doing that, and are going to expect a major change of course. If 2008 comes around, and there has been no change in the overall direction in Iraq, then it is the Democrats who will then be seen as the blameworthy "do-nothing Congress" to be tossed out by the seething voters.

Democrats are going to receive something today they have not had for a while - a large share of responsibility for governing the country. They are going to have to accept the opportunities and burdens of this responsibility, shake off their alienated and passive habits quickly, and sieze the day.

Posted by Dan Kervick | November 7, 2006 1:42 PM

We can't leave Iraq until to our politicians own up to why we are there in the first place - to keep China out. Saddam Hussein just had leased Iraqi oilfields in the south weeks before we invaded. We invaded Iraq the first time in 1991 two weeks after Saudi Arabia and China normalized relations for the first time. Because of our impasse with Iran we've lost those oil and gas (world's largest) reserves to the Chinese already.

Posted by Sinomania! | November 7, 2006 1:54 PM

"We can't leave Iraq until to our politicians own up to why we are there in the first place - to keep China out."

There it is. Very few of our elected officials would choose to oppose the oil interests. We'll be in the middle east for at least another generation.

Posted by Liv Pooleside | November 7, 2006 2:53 PM

There's one way to get the US out of Iraq: impeach Cheney and Bush. Then whoever is the Speaker of the House -- even if the Republicans hold on to it -- could change the course.

Posted by darrelplant | November 7, 2006 2:59 PM

"What it isn't is a scenario a Democratic win will help us avoid."

This is about the most awkward sentence of yours I've ever read. What a poorly written closing to an otherwise excellent article.

Posted by Anonymous | November 7, 2006 3:08 PM

I think it's foolish to think that Iraq is going to remain steady state. It's going to get much worse.

As for W ... bah

Posted by Fifi | November 7, 2006 3:11 PM

Not if we win the house. When the investigations get going full throttle and it is made clear what a criminal he is, he will cut and run so fast it will make your head spin. All he cares about is his own ass. There is a whole lot more criminal activity going on in this administration then anyone has a clue about.

Posted by Borg Warner | November 7, 2006 4:02 PM

Even though the Dems do not seem to have a clear plan on withdrawal, if there is a wave today then tomorrow the political reality will have changed. And that is the voters will have just shouted loud and clear that they do not approve of the the war. The Dems will have to move more boldly against the war with that mandate. Many Republicans in the House and Senate will probably move that way also.

Will George resist in the face of that effort? How pig-headed is he? That is the question.

Posted by syvanen | November 7, 2006 7:06 PM

The response to every Republican opinion, on any subject, should be GOP, STFU.

Pelosi shouldn't reach out to Republicans. They can't be trusted. Instead, the House should pass one liberal bill after another, and dare the Dick & George Roadshow to oppose it.

2 years of gridlock will be a vast improvement over recent history. The ultimate goal of achieving anything positive will likely require setting up another 40 Republicans for early retirement.

Posted by Jalmari | November 8, 2006 11:13 AM