From ABC news: "In his speech the president did not threaten any specific consequences for the government or any impact on U.S. participation in the war if the benchmarks are not met." It seems likely that at least part of the post-veto political situation is going to revolve around "benchmarks" that measure the Maliki regime's progress on a number of issues. One point that I don't think has been hit forcefully enough by the Democrats yet:
If the Maliki administration doesn't meet these "benchmarks" it isn't just bad in some abstract way -- rather it directly impacts the safety of U.S. troops. Or, to put this differently, U.S. soldiers will die because these benchmarks aren't being met.
The essential argument of the pro-war camp is that troops in Iraq make the country safer, carving out a space for political reconciliation that will make the country still safer. Logically, the opposite holds true as well: each month without political reconciliation exposes U.S. troops to more danger. This is literally a life-or-death matter for soldiers in Iraq who face being killed or horribly injured, in growing numbers.
The Democrats want to emphasize this for several reasons. They should present a stark choice: either there is a consequence of the Iraqi government's inability to coalesce or more American troops will be killed -- sacrificed essentially -- to make up for the political deadlock in Iraq. Two month recess equals death of American troops. No end to de-Baathification equals horrible injuries for American troops. There are reasons like this, of course, behind the death of every U.S. soldier in Iraq. Each one of these deaths, in my view, is an unnecessary sacrifice. As is the brain-damage, paralysis and other injuries that flow every day out of this war.
But the paralysis of the Maliki government looks like it might form the pressure point for best articulating this argument. Benchmarks of action are good it seems to me -- anything on the books that gives the U.S. some context for understanding the death of U.S. troops is good.
In other words, if the House and Senate gets together and agrees to benchmarks for the Maliki government, this will give a concrete narrative for the anti-war movement in Congress. American deaths won't seem natural but man-made; occuring in relation to something that is now on the table, politically. Once these benchmarks aren't met, Congress will need to respond, forcing the White House to respond. And, in the meantime, we should be putting more things on the table as well, including, most crucially of all, the military benchmarks that Bush refuses to discuss.