For those of you who consistently read Jonathan Schell, you will not be surprised by position he lays out in his most recent article in The Nation. In his piece, one of the very few that The Nation sets behind a subscription wall, Schell essentially argues that the Democrats, if they are legitimately and sufficiently of a mind to affect the outcome in Iraq, should force an implacable president to a Constitutional confrontation over which branch of government will determine the war's future course. He argues that the half-measures proposed by the likes of Levin and Jack Reed (and, by extension, Feingold and Harry Reid) are constitutionally dubious, militarily illogical, and politically disastrous.
I believe Schell is correct, and that the time for finessing this war is over.
He states:
"The Constitution of the United States is a brilliant contraption, but the duel under way between Congress and the President over the war in Iraq has put some of its limitations on display. The document specifies that 'Congress shall... declare War' (a provision that Congress seems to have forgotten) while assigning the President, as Commander in Chief, the power to wage the war thus declared (this provision is well remembered!). But the document offers no provision for cases in which the two branches disagree on the waging of a war already begun. No constitutional provision specifically assigns any branch of government the power to 'undeclare' a war. Only Congress's power of the purse--that blunt instrument--seems up to the job.
[...]
"One serious problem is that if, fearful of demanding a true end to the war, Congress merely tries to influence the war's conduct by issuing guidelines, passing resolutions, demanding certain changes in the military mission and such, then it creates two 'deciders' regarding the conduct of the war--a situation that even the warmest advocate of separation of powers will find dubious. Republicans may have a point when they say Congress should not merely interfere in the decisions of the Commander in Chief but should either defund the war altogether or stay out of it."
Militarily, both Feingold-Reid and Reed-Levin insert Congress into the role of strategist, determining both the number of troops available in theater and the prescribing the mission assigned to those that will remain. As to the number of troops--and the Webb amendment affects this consideration, as well--the recently defeated senate amendments limit funding to only those troops necessary to carry out the congressionally limited change of mission after redeployment of those not needed for that mission (combat al Qaeda, provide security for US personnel, and train Iraqi forces). Whatever that number, and we have to assume that to have any teeth, Feingold and Reed must be talking about a considerable decrease--to what, maybe 50,000?, he asks--it is fanciful to believe that if the 170,000 troops we have there now, or the 130,000 that were there last summer cannot effectively work this operation to a "successful" conclusion (i.e., where Iraqi security forces can protect their own country), that 50,000 American troops will be able to bring about such a result any more quickly, if at all.
In short, halving or better the US force will place that force in greater danger while actually decreasing the limited chance for success that it "enjoys" now.
But the military problems don't end there. On the ground, where tactical decisions are made, sometimes irrespective of strategic planning, a congressional hand on the wheel that Constitutionally belongs (in this case, sadly) to the executive, cannot be maintained if this congress and this executive disagree as to the mission. As Schell explains:
"For example, if the military launched operations supposedly to counter terror [an allowable mission under both congressional amendments] but actually to quell civil war [not allowable under either amendment], would Congress demand their cessation? Could it? By what means?"
Talk about a situation rife with the potential for abuse and mismanagement; can't you just see Armed Services Chair Carl Levin hauling Generals Patraeus and Odierno before his committee every few weeks to monitor the situation or every time he gets wind of some rumored or documented "mission drift"?
Politically, too, congressional interference in the prosecution of the war is a mistake. As this past week's votes amply demonstrated, the Democratic majority in congress just does not have the votes to prevail--not on anything substantive. The relatively toothy Feingold amendment failed, the wimpy Reed-Levin amendment actually attracted fewer votes this time out than it did last spring, and the nominally benign Webb amendment was also shot down. Now, following the "Three Strikes and You're Out" Week, Sen. Levin is predictably looking to even further water down his amendment just so it can attract the dozen Republican votes necessary to make it look like the Democrats accomplished something. Just what that will look like can only be guessed at, but we are assured that it can, by definition, be no more forceful than your Aunt Sally asking you to "pretty please" not eat so much ice cream. It's a pathetically craven Carl Levin who will go down this path; he should be advised against it.
So what options are open to us, filibuster (even a real one) and veto being inevitable? There is, of course, defunding this thing. It's an option that likely would require a mere 51 vote majority in the senate, perhaps not undoable. Surely, if that were to come to pass, Bush would seek alternative means to fund this mess. But doing so would, if nothing else, signal to the country--and especially those who assumedly voted the Democrats into office with the hope of changing the direction of the war--that congress is taking ownership of the war:
"It would involve a frank acknowledgment that Congress had decided not just to influence the President but actually to supplant his will with its own. [...] Congress would no longer be 'interfering' with the President's role as Commander in Chief but superseding it. Congress would be telling Bush, 'You are still the Commander in Chief, but we are taking away your war.'"
And this much is key to the success of any such Constitutionally belligerent attempt by congress to own the outcome of Iraq, so I will quote Schell in full:
Above all, the Democrats would have to face up to the likelihood--if not the inevitability--that a complete withdrawal of US forces would be followed by a larger-scale civil war than is already occurring. So far Democrats have, to their own peril, left it to Republicans to warn of this obvious danger. For the Republicans are not only defending current policy but establishing the predicate for a stab-in-the-back accusation following a possible Democrat-led withdrawal. They will throw Democratic assurances that withdrawal was the path to success back in their faces. Democrats said everything would be fine, Republicans will charge, but they have brought expanded slaughter and a wider civil war. The Democratic answer, which must be articulated immediately, well before the fact, is that a larger disaster may indeed be in the offing but that if it comes it will be the result not of withdrawal--for staying can only protract the disaster and postpone the reckoning--but of the decision to go into Iraq in the first place.
To do all this, I submit, the Democrats in congress must be convinced that the rank and file of the party, as well as those marginal Democratic voters will not abandon them at the polls. The Blue Dogs and the Nelsons/Pryor-types have to be sure of not only our support, but that of the voter in Omaha, Little Rock, and Pensacola will be there for them in November even after they take the vote that will, like no other imaginable, open them up to charges of not supporting the "holy" troops. Either that, or we have to count upon them to risk throwing away their careers for what is right--and that's as probable as Bush trumping the Dems by announcing that US involvement in Iraq will end by Christmas.
Schell concludes with the strong caution that Democrats must be prepared to take the hard case to the American people, to convince them that ever month we stay in Iraq will make the situation one more month worse than had we withdrawn last month; that withdrawing now is better for Iraq than withdrawing at any future moment.
All the symbolic maneuvers have failed. Democrats in congress have been charged to live up to the trust the voters provisionally gave them last November. It is time for them to go on the offensive and make every effort to take on and exercise the responsibility that comes with power, lest they lose that trust. Schell makes a solid case, not only for doing so, but also for how to accomplish it; how to lay the field and defund the war.
And now it is time to own this thing.