WASHINGTON — “If they weren’t going to vote us out for going
into Iraq, then they’re not going to vote us out for staying in.”
It’s hot now in Washington, even in the shade, but one senior Hill
staffer, diagnosing the mood of Congressional Republicans, isn’t
sweating. Nobody is, as far as Iraq is concerned. Rep. Walter Jones
(R-NC), whose office is flanked with photos of America’s fallen in
the war on terror, has co-sponsored a resolution designed to do
precisely what his colleagues on the Hill decline to do — wrest
the initiative from the administration on Iraq policy. The fanfare
in the press over this resolution, and what it might signify, is
characterized by a crossing of fingers and biting of lips as
anxiously enthusiastic as the GOP’s reaction is languorous.
Anxiety? “I’m just not seeing it,” the staffer says. And
enthusiasm? Hardly. “What is he asking for? Pick a date on the
calendar? Throw a dart?” The rhetorical dart-throwing is not with
plastic-tippers. The signal a timetable for Iraq withdrawal would
send, as far as the House is concerned, “is that America is in
retreat, out of its front lines.”
The Boston Globe reports that public support for the
war is “plummeting,” and “a growing number of members of Congress
from both parties are reevaluating the reasons for invasion and
demanding” a plan from the White House. But the view from the Hill
reveals that even some Democrats aren’t comfortable with setting
pullout deadlines. Rep. Jones, as fate would have it, isn’t either
— according to his website, where Eastern Carolinians can learn that their
Congressman is actually “NOT in favor of any immediate withdrawal,”
nor does he support “setting an end date at which time all troops
must be out of Iraq.”
“What I do support,” the Jones release adds, “is a public
discussion of our goals and the future of our military involvement
in that country. The resolution I am co-sponsoring will do no more
than call on the President to set a plan and a date to begin
reducing the number of troops we have in Iraq.” Indeed. But House
Republicans — leadership and membership alike — have the distinct
impression that “cutting and running” is exactly what Jones is
after.
“If he wanted to get out a long time from now,” the staffer
asks, “why be so vigilant about it already?”
ONE ANSWER IS THAT public support for the war has fallen, that the
‘06 and ‘08 elections are only getting closer, and that vulnerable
members and high-profile hopefuls might want to distance themselves
from an open-ended commitment to sign blank checks for an
administration not interested in the confines of calendars.
Not so fast. The House GOP doesn’t feel vulnerable —
in fact, it’s confident that the voting public has already accepted
a strategy of sequential conditions for withdrawal in Iraq, set to
goals on the ground, not dates on the page. There’s a memo (another
one; another British one) bandying about an “early 2006” drawdown
date, yet the dates are not firm, and dependent upon the reality on
the ground. It’s all nebulous enough to seem far off. But could it
be that the ‘06 elections are too far off for Iraq to quite
register, and that election-year jitters will flush out the
timetablists? Social Security proves it isn’t so. On that issue,
members are shaking in their boots. “If we do nothing we’ll look
stupid, if we do the wrong thing we’ll look stupid” — the danger
of punishment at the polls on Social Security is, today, as real as
Fallujah to Congress. If Republicans in the House were afraid of
Iraq, they’d be spooked already.
Crazy? Some might think. But rarely are those locked into the
two-year election cycle cavalier or wrong about what might nail
them on election day. Social Security may push Iraq worries into
the background, but nervousness is contagious and skepticism short
of criticism a stock in trade for hedging politicians looking to
reflect the ambivalence of voters who could send them home in
November and keep them there.
Walter Jones — whatever he wants — is a respected man on the
Hill (and the father of Freedom Fries). But his trumpet’s call on
Iraq throws a faint echo down the corridors of the Cannon, Rayburn,
and Longworth House Office Buildings. Ringing much louder in the
ears of members are the screaming headlines of July 7th’s bombings
in London. The enemy Congress still sees in action operates in
Iraq, too, and the collective understanding that setting a deadline
means telling the terrorists “just wait long enough” appears firm
as a handshake. Mesopotamia Nervosa is a disease that has not made
it onto the Republican side of the aisle.
WHAT ALL OF THIS MEANS for the GOP between now and the day that
Hillary Clinton either keeps or loses her Senate seat is that
everything that America does in Iraq will happen because the
Administration wants it to. Congress won’t take the lead while Bush
is in office, and in the runup to ‘06, it will be sure to
deliberately avoid the use of any oversight. Second-guessing the
President or the Pentagon on this $5 billion or that $5 billion
looks “un-American,” as the staffer characterizes the impression,
but it also looks simply contentious. And is. And with Social
Security lurking in the corners, it behooves the party to act like
as much of a unit as possible, wherever it’s possible. After
another year and a half of pay-as-you-go and private accounts, it
may be every man for himself.
