I was prescient: Back in November and December of 2006 I argued that despite the replacement of Rumsfeld for Gates (for whom the GOP Establishment had more confidence in), and in particular, despite the Dems gaining majority status in Congress - but unfortunately not the 60 votes in the Senate they needed veto Bush and the GOP footsoldiers, and regardless of popular opinion or the mass media's coverage of the occupation, our Iraq policy wouldn't meaningfully change at least until Bush had retired from the Oval Office and was succeeded by a Democrat. (see this post, for example)
The "surge" has expanded our military presence in the heart of the Middle East and provided in its wake what the war apologists and stenographers in the media argue is a drop in violence. Meanwhile, this is like injecting a terminally ill cancer patient with morphine: His pain has been blunted but he is just as ill as before.
Foreign policy had always been intended by the framers of the Constitution to be executed and overseen by the Executive and the Legislative Branches, respectively. But in the 20th and now 21st Century, matters of war, military occupation and geopolicy at large have become the sole province of the Commander-In-Chief.
So, an observer might reasonably argue that even if the Democrats who were elected by their constituents in large part to help end the war actually had strong ideological convictions, and were indeed animated by concerns beyond just the next election cycle, they didn't stand a chance of reigning in Bush's renegade actions in Iraq. But as blogger Lenin's Tomb notes, their failure (and the failure of the US antiwar movement) was even more spectacular than I had already braced myself for.
Lenin quotes extensively from a recent news report from Politico.com which details how quickly the "antiwar" movement rushed to accommodate the President and the Republican and Democratic lawmakers who support an open-ended occupation of Iraq. The reason is that apparently, according to either the author or the antiwar activists he interviewed for the piece, is that the came to recognize the "hard, political reality" f the situation and thus willingly gave up on their mission of ending the war by de-funding it or any other legislative means necessary. From the article:
After a series of legislative defeats in 2007 that saw the year end with more U.S. troops in Iraq than when it began, a coalition of anti-war groups is backing away from its multimillion-dollar drive to cut funding for the war and force Congress to pass timelines for bringing U.S. troops home.
In recognition of hard political reality, the groups instead will lower their sights and push for legislation to prevent President Bush from entering into a long-term agreement with the Iraqi government that could keep significant numbers of troops in Iraq for years to come.
Of course, this recognition of political reality has nothing whatsoever to do with these activist groups' decision to back away from their original demands - the very same demands made by Democrats who successfully ran for re-election to Congress back in 2006.
The Politico article gives us the rest of the story in the next paragraphs:
The groups believe this switch in strategy can draw contrasts with Republicans that will help Democrats gain ground in November and bring the votes to pass more dramatic measures. But it is a long way from the early months of 2007, when Democrats were freshly in power and momentum for a dramatic shift in Iraq policy seemed overpowering.
“There was a consensus that last year was not productive,” John Isaacs, executive director of Council for a Livable World, said of a meeting attended by a coalition of anti-war groups last week. “Our expectations were dashed.”
The meeting, held at an office on K Street, was attended by around 20 representatives of influential anti-war groups, including MoveOn.org and Americans Against Escalation in Iraq, which spent $12 million last year opposing the war.
Lenin nails just how pathetic this display of weakness from the antiwar movement is, and how it exposes them as a wholly-controlled subsidiary of the Democratic Party's Washington Establishment.
This sadly reflects one of the weaknesses of the US antiwar movement - its deep fragmentation with much of the leadership composed of supporters of the Democratic Party. Since when were there "clear distinctions" available between "anti-war Democrats and pro-war Republicans"? The only way this fiction can be maintained is if they maintain the pretense, as they do, that funding for the war couldn't be shot down because they "didn't have the votes". The claim from the Democrats was that an executive veto, which can be issued whenever there is less than two-thirds Congressional support for a given bill, prevented them from withholding funding. It's a lie.
In order for funding to be issued, Congress has to vote in the affirmative for it, which couldn't have happened without the Democrats who are now in the majority. This is an extremely costly war, and even if there is considerable troop "drawdown", the Congressional Budget Office expects it to cost a total of $2.73 trillion. To fork over this much on behalf of the taxpayer while blithering on about balanced budgets and so on is a serious commitment.
The lie can only survive if people ignore the fact that Democrats already had plenty of opportunity to set withdrawal timetables and chose not to pursue it. The first time they bothered to even ask nicely was in November last year - arguably a necessary pitch before the elections - but they quickly caved in and gave Bush an extra $70bn to pursue the ongoing occupation, sans strings. But who am I to question success? The subordination of the priorities of the antiwar movement to the electoral strategy of the Democrats worked well in 2004, did it not? And the conduct of Democrats elected in 2006 has been a real blast, hasn't it? Let's have more of that, why not?
And on the same subject, be sure to check out this article from Mother Jones as well as this blog post from "left i on the news."
Update #1 (2/10): Also, check out this article by Matt Taibbi in Rolling Stone. Taibbi notes:
Rather than use the vast power they had to end the war, Democrats devoted their energy to making sure that "anti-war activism" became synonymous with "electing Democrats." Capitalizing on America's desire to end the war, they hijacked the anti-war movement itself, filling the ranks of peace groups with loyal party hacks. Anti-war organizations essentially became a political tool for the Democrats — one operated from inside the Beltway and devoted primarily to targeting Republicans.
[. . .]
The really tragic thing about the Democratic surrender on Iraq is that it's now all but guaranteed that the war will be off the table during the presidential campaign. Once again — it happened in 2002, 2004 and 2006 — the Democrats have essentially decided to rely on the voters to give them credit for being anti-war, despite the fact that, for all the noise they've made to the contrary, in the end they've done nothing but vote for war and cough up every dime they've been asked to give, every step of the way.
Eli from the blog "left i" has some disagreements with Taibbi's conclusions, however. He notes in a blog post that:
Matt Taibbi paints the portrait of the Democratic surrender on the Iraq war, and about how "Working behind the scenes, the Democrats have systematically taken over the anti-war movement, packing the nation's leading group with party consultants more interested in attacking the GOP than ending the war."
As I said, it is interesting reading, but it has two major problems. The first is the idea that the Democrats "surrendered" on the Iraq war. In reality, they did no such thing; with the exception of a distinct minority of the Democrats, their talk of being opposed to the war was just that - talk, designed to suck in the votes of the real antiwar movement in the country by pretending to be opposed to the war.
The second relates to the "antiwar" "movement." The article mentions exactly one "antiwar" group, Americans Against the Escalation in Iraq, preposterously described as "the leader of the anti-war lobby." The "anti-war" part is completely preposterous; how can you be "anti-war" when you are just opposed to "escalation"? The "lobby" part isn't really preposterous, because that's exactly what this group is, as opposed to a "movement" which is how it is also described.
He also faults Taibbi for neglecting to mention the work of what he considers to be "real" antiwar groups like ANSWER and United for Peace and Justice as opposed to front groups for electing Democrats like Americans Against Escalation in Iraq.
Update #2: Of course, I was far from the only cynic who correctly predicted after the 2006 Midterm Elections that the Democrats' victories in Congress would not significantly strengthen the anti-war movement(s) in the US. For one particularly good example of this phenomenon, see this January 2007 editorial by Mike Davis here.
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