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Baghdad? What? whisper the
Ostriches
By Jim Lobe
WASHINGTON - Democrats had a thoroughly
enjoyable August. Public approval ratings for President
George W Bush, although still high by historic
standards, were sinking as fast as the stock market,
while worries about a possible recession were growing
and the latest corporate scandals were the talk of
coffee shops and neighborhood bars around the country.
At the same time, Republican dissent over Bush's
war on terrorism - and particularly his determination to
carry it to Iraq - had broken out into the open. Not
only were his own father's foreign-policy mandarins -
especially Bush Sr's national security adviser Brent
Scowcroft and secretary of state James Baker - warning
that the administration's rush to war was damaging
Washington's traditional alliances, Republican lawmakers
such as Senator Chuck Hagel were raising the
embarrassing fact that the most eager hawks somehow
managed to avoid military service during the Vietnam
War.
To all this, the Democrats, suddenly
hopeful of regaining control of the House of
Representatives and increase their slenderest of
majorities in the Senate in the November 5 elections,
pursued the wisest course: they kept their heads down.
Only when asked did they say that Bush should
ask Congress for authorization to attack Iraq before
launching the bombers - while they secretly cherished
the hope that Bush might go ahead and do it on his own
anyway, as Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld and Vice
President Dick Cheney were advising, thus further
alienating US allies and feeding growing popular fears
that the administration's war on terrorism had gone
dangerously out of control.
So when the White
House abruptly decided late last week to take their
advice, the Democrats were caught off guard. And, as
they returned to Washington early this week, it was
clear that they are still not sure how to react to the
White House's demand that a vote be taken before
Congress recesses in early to mid-October, which has
made them distinctly uncomfortable.
"There will
be a vote in the Congress before they leave for the
elections," said White House spokesman Ari Fleischer, an
assertion that obliged Senate Democratic leader, Tom
Daschle, to meekly suggest that the United Nations
Security Council vote first on an authorization, the
chronology followed before the last war against Iraq 11
years ago.
Bush's unexpectedly deft move
accomplishes two main objectives. It shifted the focus
of the Congressional elections from the economy and
corporate wrongdoing - on which Republicans are
considered highly vulnerable - to the need to rally
around the president as he prepares the country for war.
"In terms of the political agenda, as long as
the administration can keep the national spotlight off
the domestic issues, it helps them," Democratic Senator
Richard Durbin noted to the Congressional Quarterly this
week. And while Bush's move carries risks of its own -
the latest public opinion polls show that support for
invading Iraq has declined significantly from highs
registered shortly after the September 11 attacks - it
may also grease the rails to war, according to most
political analysts.
While Daschle may continue
to insist that a vote not be taken until after the UN
Security Council approves its own resolution authorizing
force if Baghdad does not comply with sweeping new terms
for weapons inspections, the House of Representatives,
whose calendar is controlled by a loyal Republican
leadership, is expected to act very quickly, possibly by
the end of this month.
While much depends on how
the resolution is written - whether, for example, it
will apply only to Iraq - most analysts believe the
House will approve it by a wide margin, because the
Republican majority, despite strong reservations voiced
last month by Majority Leader Dick Armey is much more
gung-ho. Armey's admonitions are already being
discounted due to his decision to retire from Congress
in January.
In addition, House Minority Leader
Richard Gephardt, who is considering a run for the
presidency in 2004, has generally been more hawkish than
his Senate counterparts, especially about knocking off
Saddam Hussein. "I share President Bush's resolve to
confront head-on the menace," he said in a major policy
speech earlier this summer.
Adding to the
pressure on Democrats were the results of two primary
races for the House this summer in which genuinely
popular African-American incumbents were upset by
political unknowns who received hundreds of thousands of
dollars in campaign contributions from out-of-state
Jewish donors alarmed by the two congressmen's lack of
sympathy for Israel's Likud-led government.
"Democrats got the message," said one Capitol
Hill aide who asked not to be identified. "If they don't
back the president, who's now seen as a great of friend
of Israel in its hour of need, they risk losing one of
their most important constituencies."
In 1991,
the House, which was then controlled by a Democratic
majority, voted 250-183 to give the elder Bush a mandate
to expel Iraq from Kuwait, with 86 Democrats voting in
favor. This time, the margin is expected to be greater.
That will make the Senate, which voted 52-47 to
support Bush Sr 11 years ago, the main focus of
attention in the coming weeks. There, Democrats and some
Republicans who, like Hagel, are identified with the
'realist' wing of the party to which Scowcroft and Baker
also belong, have raised more questions about going to
war now, especially in the absence of concrete evidence
linking Iraq to al-Qaeda, let alone to the September 11
attacks.
But, to the extent that Bush can dispel
the impression that his own cabinet is deeply divided
between hawks led by Rumsfeld and Cheney and doves led
by Secretary of State Colin Powell and military
commanders concerned about the prospect of a prolonged
occupation of Iraq, Republican senators will be inclined
to rally around the president, according to political
analysts.
"Hagel's objections are taken
seriously, because he is seen as speaking for Powell and
the brass," notes one administration official. "If they
fall into line, so will the Republican moderates,
virtually every one."
Democrats would then have
to vote almost unanimously to reject an authorization.
But, despite reservations voiced by Daschle and other
party heavyweights, including Senate Foreign Relations
Committee chairman Joe Biden and another presidential
hopeful with a strong military background, John Kerry of
Massachusetts, the party remains deeply divided.
Its 2000 vice-presidential candidate, Joseph
Lieberman, has long supported military action to oust
Hussein, and more conservative Democrats, particularly
from southern states, are considered certain to vote for
any resolution.
And one leading Democrat, former
President Bill Clinton, who many would have expected to
speak out against an invasion, may well steer clear of
the issue now that his spouse, Hillary, has become a
senator from New York. Pressure from Jewish voters there
has transformed the former First Lady from a staunch
advocate of the Oslo peace process and an independent
Palestinian state to an enthusiastic backer of Israeli
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.
(Inter Press Service)
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