[Mb-civic] Signs of an Iraq Policy - David S. Broder - Washington Post Op-Ed

[William Swiggard]

Signs of an Iraq Policy

By David S. Broder
Sunday, November 27, 2005; B07

It has taken a long time, but the Democrats finally have come close to 
defining a sensible common ground on the issue of Iraq.

They were badly divided from the opening debate on the decision to go to 
war, when House Democrats opposed President Bush's request, 126 to 81, 
while Senate Democrats supported it, 29 to 21. In last year's campaign, 
the incoherence of the opposition party was capsulized in Sen. John 
Kerry's notorious comment that "I actually voted for the $87 billion" to 
fund ongoing military operations "before I voted against it." Lacking 
any consensus and without any mechanism for resolving their internal 
debate, individual Democrats have been offering a jumble of views, even 
as the public displayed increasing doubts about administration policy.

The freelancing continues. Just this month, Rep. John Murtha of 
Pennsylvania, the senior Democrat on the Appropriations defense 
subcommittee, captured headlines and triggered an emotional House debate 
by declaring that U.S. troops in Iraq were nothing but a target for 
terrorists and should be withdrawn from the country.

Murtha, a Marine combat veteran of Korea and Vietnam, is a man who 
relies on his gut-level instincts. His was an emotional protest 
delivered on behalf of the wounded men and women he visits regularly at 
Walter Reed Army Medical Center, not a carefully reasoned analysis of 
the strategic consequences of leaving Iraq to a factional struggle of 
Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds. It was not a position his party could -- or 
would -- embrace.

But the outlines of such a position emerged last week in speeches by two 
respected Democratic members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, 
Joe Biden of Delaware and Barack Obama of Illinois. That they reached 
almost the same conclusion from opposite sides of the intraparty debate 
-- Biden an early and consistent supporter of the U.S. intervention 
against Saddam Hussein, and Obama an equally confirmed skeptic about the 
invasion -- adds to the significance of their statements.

Biden, the committee's senior Democrat, said in New York that it is time 
to scale back U.S. ambitions in Iraq and reduce troop commitment while 
shifting security responsibilities to the Iraqis. The next day, Obama, a 
freshman member of the committee, made many of the same points in Chicago.

Both said that an immediate or precipitous American withdrawal is out of 
the question, because, as Obama put it, "having waged a war that has 
unleashed daily carnage and uncertainty in Iraq, we have to manage our 
exit in a responsible way -- with the hope of leaving a stable 
foundation for the future, but at the very least taking care not to 
plunge the country into an even deeper and, perhaps, irreparable crisis."

They both envisage the gradual drawdown of U.S. forces through 2006, 
with Biden more willing than Obama to suggest a timeline for that process.

What must happen to make it possible, they agree, is a significant 
acceleration in the training of Iraqi security forces and in the civil 
reconstruction projects needed to give Iraqis a sense of hope -- both of 
which will require a change in priorities and an improvement in 
operations by U.S. forces.

Both senators express hope that next month's election of a permanent 
government will help speed the reconciliation of the Sunnis to the plans 
of the Shiites and the Kurds, but they acknowledge that the critical 
decisions in this regard must be made by the Iraqis themselves.

The policy outlined in the two speeches is the same that Democrats put 
forward in a Senate resolution earlier this month -- one that, with 
minor modifications, was embraced by senior Republicans such as John 
Warner of Virginia and overwhelmingly approved.

Not only have Democrats found their voice, they may well have pointed 
the administration and the country toward a realistic and modestly 
hopeful course on Iraq.

Hugh Sidey of Time magazine, one of the great White House reporters of 
his generation, died last week while on vacation in Paris. Sidey revered 
the presidency and was fascinated by the men who occupied the office, 
from John Kennedy through the two George Bushes, exploring their 
character in shrewd and sensitive essays for his magazine and in several 
books.

The product of an Iowa newspaper family, Sidey was proud of his Midwest 
roots -- and scornful of elitists who looked down on our section of the 
country. He loved to tell the story of his first interview with McGeorge 
Bundy, the Harvard dean who became Kennedy's national security adviser. 
"He asked me, 'Where'd you go to school, Sidey?' " Hugh would say, "and 
when I replied, 'Iowa State,' he said, 'That's too bad.' " And then we 
would laugh at the snobbery.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/25/AR2005112500961.html?nav=hcmodule
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