I had an insight today that has not been part of the debate several of us have been having about how best to end the war in Iraq and pre-empt a war in Iran. I expect that the Bush Administration has already thought of this, but I don't think it has been part of our discussions to this point.
Some Kosters have argued that we need to repeal the 2002 AUMFAI (Iraq War Resolution) so that Bush would no longer be authorized to stay in Iraq. (I have also argued that that authorization has already expired, but without getting much traction.)
What has occurred to me is that while Bush could not send troops into Iraq based on the 2001 AUMF aimed at what we suspected and soon knew was Al Qaeda, he can use that justification to keep troops in Iraq today, because now Al Qaeda is in Iraq.
The implications of this -- many of them bad, but one of them possibly very promising -- after the jump.
A prefatory note: I've made other arguments related to the notion that mcjoan and Big Tent Democrat have been promoting (as is their right and responsibility, if they believe their arguments) that the only way to stop the war in Iraq is to cut funding and repeal the 2002 AUMF/IWR. Those arguments -- that Bush probably doesn't need the fig leaf of the IWR to go into Iran, albeit probably unjustly; that if you take the 2002 IWR seriously then repealing it and cutting funding may undercut the popular "Murtha Plan"; and that we don't have the votes to repeal the 2002 AUMF and probably not to cut funding either -- are not critical to this diary. This diary proceeds on the assumption that BTD and mcjoan are correct that (1) Bush's ability to use force in Iraq has been understood to depend on the 2002 AUMF, (2) restrictions on his war powers other than exercising the power of the purse are unconstitutional, and (3) getting Bush out of Iraq is necessary and sufficient for keeping him out of Iran. My acception of these assumptions for this argument (or "arguendo") doesn't mean that I actually accept them otherwise.
Bush could not have used the 2001 AUMF Against Terrorism as legal justification for an invasion of Iraq. We knew at that time -- conspiracy theorists, please go somewhere else for a while -- that Al Qaeda was behind the 9/11 attacks, and was thus the proper target of that resolution.
The 2001 AUMF remains in effect, and I think it's safe to say that it is in no danger of being repealed anytime soon. It has been used by the Bush Administration as a legal justification for everything from the acts rejected by the Supreme Court in Hamdan to warrantless wiretapping. All of those arguments are garbage. However, use of the AUMF to justify some continued U.S. military operation in Iraq would clearly work.
Why? Because a group identifying itself as Al Qaeda, and which Bush would presumably have the right to treat as Al Qaeda, is currently operating in Iraq. (I highly recommend this article in Slate by Philip Carter, a good liberal lawyer who is with the military who has been the most honest hawk I've seen, about Al Qaeda's havoc-wreaking presence there.) That means that even if we got the 2/3 vote needed to repeal the 2002 AUMF/IWR, Bush could still keep and deploy troops there based on the 2001 AUMF.
But this is where it gets interesting. Bush could use the military against Al Qaeda and its allies -- and it doesn't really have any allies in Iraq. It has attacked people on all sides, whatever causes more problems for the country; see the Slate article. Furthermore, use of U.S. power against true Al Qaeda troops -- not the homegrown insurgents, not Muqtada's Mahdi Army -- is probably about the only exercise of U.S. power that all homegrown Iraqi factions could agree upon. And it's something that the American people might still support, as I suggested in this diary from early January.
Put those two facts together and you get a proposal that I haven't heard before. If Bush can stay in Iraq and fight only Al Qaeda -- yes, that's tricky, as I acknowledge below -- then maybe we can get Congress to repeal the 2002 AUMF. In a world where we have the 2001 AUMF but not the 2002 AUMF, the U.S. retains a role in Iraq, but it is aimed solely at the foreign fighters from Al Qaeda: about 3%, I believe, of the people now fighting in Iraq. (I'm happy to update with a more reliable figure.) That's what Bush claims we're doing in his speeches, while he actually has us in Baghdad, the north, the south, etc. So to create such a situation would be a way to call him on his lies.
Now there's one serious problem with this proposal: Bush can claim that Al Qaeda is infiltrating throughout all of Iraq. I think that argument can be defeated. The sole authorized focus of U.S. power, under this arrangement, has to be Al Qaeda bases and operations. Might hot pursuit into Baghdad sometimes be justified? Maybe -- but that would not allow for the stationing of umpty-thousand troops there. Under this arrangement, our war in Iraq becomes limited to Anbar and a few other provinces where Al Qaeda is based -- that is, in the Western and North Central parts of the country, not the parts closest to Iran.
And that makes it much less easy for Bush to engineer a situation where our troops would be clashing with anyone from Iran.
I would defer to more knowledgeable minds than mine on this, but it strikes me that almost everyone except possibly the Kurds would be happy to see us limit our activities to actually hunting down Al Qaeda. Saudi Arabia doesn't want Al Qaeda there. The insurgency doesn't want the foreign fighters. Iran doesn't want them there, nor does SCIRI, or Muqtada, nor Turkey, nor Syria. We could get ourselves out of the civil war while arguably doing something brave and useful and doable -- and much less expensive and deadly to both our troops and Iraqi civilians.
This is a newly hatched idea, so I think that there may be problems with it that I haven't anticipated, and I hope that you will collectively give it a thorough critique. But let me note the political effect:
If Democrats support this plan, we can call for cutting funding for the war without cutting it off entirely; narrowing the region in which we are actually authorizing force; keeping our troops out of the civil war in the north, east, and south of the country; and staving off war with Iran. And we continue to "support Iraq" as a nation -- getting Al Qaeda out of there would be a true service -- and fighting our actual enemies much better than we have done thus far.
Now -- what does that leave our Republican opponents supporting? More money, more American deaths, more Iraqi civilian deaths, a wider war in areas we know we can't control, possible confrontation with Iraq, and less focus on our -- and Iraq's -- actual enemy: Al Qaeda.
Yeah, there's a Congressional vote I'd like to see take place! BRING IT ON!
I know that many people here, as in many politically energized places, have a visceral distrust of and dislike for compromise proposals. And I'm not even sure I would fully endorse this myself upon reflection. But this has the smell, to me, of something that could be a unifying Democratic Party position, reframe and control the debate, and achieve the vast majority of what we want. I'll look forward to your thoughts.