Falling on Deaf Ears

As campaigns for next year’s national elections heat up, barbs on candidates’ attitudes and voting history on Iraq, unsurprisingly, are flying. What is more surprising, or perhaps ironic in light of the current budgetary brinkmanship between the White House and Capitol Hill, is the degree to which candidates of all ilks are distancing themselves from President Bush’s policies.

The President has made clear his aversion for timetables for withdrawal from Iraq. But even if he continues to wield his veto and Congress lacks the votes to override him, he must realize, from the tenor of the current campaigns and debate in Congress, that it’s high time to scale back the number of American troops in the region. Even if he is averse to withdrawal on Congress’s terms, he should do so on his own.

Although Bush claims that withdrawing from Iraq would prove disastrous to the future of the country and the region, recent events, as well as the relatively flat trajectory of progress, have shown that American involvement isn’t improving the situation. A case in point is the 12-foot wall on which the United States military began construction in mid-April. According to original plans, it would stretch three miles through Baghdad, separating Sunni and Shiite areas. The barrier was conceived as part of a new strategy to address sectarian violence through physical separation but has largely backfired, viewed by many Sunni Iraqis as discriminatory and opposed by many in the Iraqi parliament.

That the U.S. military must resort to a strategy involving a physical barrier to separate feuding sects—a strategy that has failed throughout history—suggests that we have exhausted all reasonable solutions. Even if Congress and the White House cannot agree on a timetable for withdrawal or the necessity for such a timetable, President Bush must begin scaling back the numbers of American troops in Iraq—without clear signs of improvement, the cost of staying in the country in American lives simply isn’t worth it.

If this president refuses to withdraw on his own terms, Congress will have no choice but to escalate the stalemate. It should set a deadline, not for bring American troops home from Iraq, but for revoking its authorization of the Iraq conflict. By repealing its authorization of the use of military force, passed in October of 2002, but not delaying funding for troops deployed in Iraq, Congress could undermine any moral legitimacy that President Bush can still claim for continuing to throw soldiers into the morass while avoiding accusations of undercutting troops in the field.

When the conflict no longer has the blessing of Congress, President Bush’s continued support of remaining in Iraq will be in direct conflict not only with the position of Congress but also with the will of the people he claims to represent. Perhaps then the White House will finally be convinced of the need to change our approach to Iraq.