"What more could Congress do over Iraq?"

Markos:

The Politico's Jim VandeHei and John Harris got this right.

Galling as it may be to Democrats, Bush still can claim to be acting with more clarity and courage than the congressional majority.

He believes the Iraq war is right and has thrown away things most politicians crave -- approval ratings, and potentially his reputation in history -- to get what he wants.

Democratic leaders believe the war is wrong but have pursued their beliefs with a series of ginger calculations that so far have achieved no substantive changes in policy.

They are acting with the same defensive-mindedness that led many Democrats to swallow deep misgivings and vote five years ago to authorize the war in the first place.

So what could Democrats do?

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) could force a vote a day over Iraq. She could keep the House in session all night, over weekends and through planned vacations.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) could let filibusters run from now till Christmas rather than yield to pro-war Republicans.

Such tactics might or might not be politically sensible, but in their absence, anti-war lawmakers can hardly say they have done everything possible to challenge the war and bring attention to their cause [...]

"Our view is that they are very strong, they have the public's support at their backs, and they need to use that strength," [MoveOn's Eli Parisher] said. "I think the efforts thus far have been good, but not good enough to put the Republicans on the spot about blocking an end to the war."

Specifically, he supports forcing Senate Republicans who are trying to block measures to force Bush's hand on troop withdrawals to back up their filibuster threats in a dramatic showdown on the Senate floor.

"Republicans are effectively filibustering, but no one knows it," he said. "One way to demonstrate what's going on is to make them stand there and read the phone book."

Seriously. Force them to sit there with that filibuster for days. No need for Democrats to speak. Leave the GOP obstructionism front and center. For days.

Let's see if they really have it in them to obstruct change in Iraq if the spotlight is truly on them.

"Dems urge different Iraq exit plans at steak fry"

Des Moines Register(IA):

Indianola, Ia. — Each of six Democratic presidential candidates, appearing at Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin’s annual steak fry in Indianola, argued to the most active core of party activists in Iowa Sunday that they can end the war in Iraq.

The event, on a sun-splashed rural hillside in Warren County, began the fall sprint to Iowa’s leadoff nominating caucuses on a high note. An estimated 18,000 Democratic activists attended what was in effect a political festival reflecting optimism about their party’s chance of retaking the White House.

While the candidates pointed out their differences on the war, a number of undecided caucusgoers said they are not going to decide whom they will support based on the individual candidates’ Iraq plans.

“I want to know there’s a plan for withdrawal, so troops can come home in a way that doesn’t leave the country completely destabilized,” said Iowa City Democrat Nikki Neems. “I feel like I’m looking at other issues to help me decide, because whichever Democrat wins, they will fix it.”

Attending Harkin’s 30th annual fundraiser were Delaware Sen. Joe Biden, New York Sen. Hillary Clinton, Connecticut Sen. Chris Dodd, former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards, Illinois Sen. Barack Obama and New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson.

The six candidates who attended have been campaigning aggressively in Iowa, where the caucuses are scheduled to begin the series of nominating events next year.

All of the candidates, who were held to 15-minute speeches, at least touched on their plans to bring troops home, each urging far more rapid redeployment of U.S. troops than Gen. David Petraeus, the U.S. military commander in Iraq. President Bush said Wednesday he planned to accept Petraeus’ call for modest reductions in U.S. troops in Iraq by Christmas and the withdrawal by next summer of about 30,000 of the more than 160,000 there now.

Edwards was the most pointed in his criticism of Bush and challenge to his rivals, saying the president had “destroyed America’s reputation in the world” and challenging his Democratic opponents in Congress to tie paying for the war with a schedule for withdrawal.

“Every single funding bill that goes to President Bush should have a timetable for withdrawal. If he vetoes it, they should send another bill with a timetable for withdrawal,” Edwards said. “Until this president is forced to start taking troops out of Iraq, no timetable, no funding.

Obama had resisted some attempts by Democrats this year to tie money for the war to a deadline for withdrawal, although he voted against a supplemental spending bill in May that had no deadline.

Obama signaled Sunday he would only support a future Iraq funding measure if it included a deadline.

“We are going to bring an end to this war and I will fight hard in the United States Senate to make sure we don’t pass any funding bill that does not have a deadline,” Obama told the crowd.

By making the statement, Obama joined only Dodd, who has been critical of Clinton and Obama for their resistance to tying war appropriations to a schedule.

Clinton has resisted pressure to insist that paying for the war’s expenses be contingent on a firm deadline for having soldiers out.

“Are you ready to end the war in Iraq and bring our troops home, as safely and responsibly as possible?” Clinton said, prompting cheers from the crowd.

Of the six candidates, Richardson has proposed the most aggressive plan to pull troops out of Iraq: All U.S. forces in six to eight months.

“I would bring all the troops out of Iraq, no residual forces. And only then can the change start a political settlement,” Richardson said.

Harkin’s annual fundraiser, which has grown into a nationally watched autumn political ritual, served up plenty of partisan red meat, never mind the real thing. More than two tons of steak sizzled from massive grills, which kicked out enough food to feed more than 12,000 people, according to organizers’ estimates.

Campaign aides urged Iowa supporters to attend the event, with some of the campaigns buying up blocs of the $30 tickets.

Bob and Mary Leborde of Perry sipped cups of beer and waited for the candidates to take the stage, but both said the gradations the candidates discuss about getting out of Iraq do not matter to them.

“Obama was against it from the beginning and that appeals to me,” said Bob Leborde, a railroad employee whose union has endorsed Clinton.

“But I don’t blame the people who voted for it,” Mary Leborde said. “I would have voted for it, based on the information they had.”

Biden, who has called for a three-state federation in Iraq, suggested activists pay close attention to the candidates’ plans.

“One of us on this stage is going to have to end the war (Bush) started and that is — that is deadly serious,” Biden said.

Edwards and Clinton have alternated for the lead in Iowa in recent polls, with Obama in third and Richardson in fourth. In national polls, Clinton has led, with Obama trailing her and Edwards in third.

Muscatine County Democrat Don Paulson, who is undecided, said he is less concerned about backing a perceived Washington outsider than picking someone who can withstand what he expects to be a formidable Republican attack campaign on the eventual nominee.

“Whoever it is, they are going to get hit with the same stuff,” said Paulson, co-chairman of the Muscatine County Democrats. “I don’t know who the best one is to battle that.”

Howie P.S.: You watch Obama's speech here.
Markos, Ben Smith and The Huffington Post headline Obama's commitment today to voting against any war authorization that doesn't include a timeline for withdrawal.

"Accord on Iraq War Slips Further Away"

WaPo:

When Army Gen. David H. Petraeus last week proposed withdrawing more than 20,000 U.S. troops from Iraq, some congressional Democrats nodded their heads and saw it as a positive, if insufficient, step forward. Some wanted to take credit. After all, they reasoned, the drawdown, the benchmarks report, even Petraeus's Capitol Hill testimony came about only because of Democratic pressure.

Within hours, that idea was shot down. When House Democratic leaders convened in the office of Speaker Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) at 5:30 p.m. Monday, strategists concluded they were already getting credit for what was happening but that voters wanted much more. So Pelosi, according to aides at the meeting, insisted that Democrats coordinate their message and dictated what that message would be: The general's plan meant 10 more years of war, or even "endless war."

Either way, what seems increasingly clear is that Washington will remain locked in an endless war over Iraq -- at least until President Bush leaves office in 16 months. Following long-awaited congressional hearings, progress reports and presidential speeches, the prospect of a grand bipartisan resolution to the extended conflict in Iraq that some hoped September would bring appears more elusive than ever.

"The headline for the last week is that the war is pretty much going to be on a stay-the-course path and clearly is going to be passed on to the next president, and there isn't going to be an awful lot done in the Congress to change that," said Leon E. Panetta, a former Clinton White House chief of staff who served on the Iraq Study Group that tried to forge a bipartisan agreement last year.

With razor-thin majorities, advocates for changing course do not appear to have the capacity to muster veto-proof votes to impose their will on Bush. While many Republicans have grown dissatisfied with the war, not enough have signaled willingness to break with the president on the overarching policy. Where change advocates may be able to influence policy, at least for now, is more on the margins, such as legislating more resting time for troops between deployments.

Moreover, the political calendar works against any possible war accord between the parties. With presidential primaries barely three months off, Democratic candidates such as Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) and Barack Obama (Ill.) are competing to be more aggressive in confronting Bush and Republicans. Even if they could find a compromise that enough Republicans would accept, it is not clear that the candidates would agree to anything but a hard-line position given the antiwar fervor in the party base.

So any further changes in war policy before Jan. 20, 2009, seem likely to be up to Bush, who has signaled that he is starting to shift. The White House said the Petraeus drawdown marks the beginning of a "gradual change in mission," and Bush suggested in his speech that he hopes to bring more troops home next year beyond the troops sent earlier this year for the buildup.

In fact, although senior officials did not use the term "exit strategy," the outlines of one emerged from the various statements and speeches they made last week. Petraeus plans to begin redefining his mission in December from leading combat operations to partnering with Iraqi security units and eventually to supporting them. At least 21,700 troops, and perhaps more from the buildup, will be pulled out by July. Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates told reporters he hopes to bring the overall force, now at 168,000, down to 100,000 by the end of next year. And Petraeus told The Washington Post that he foresees "sustainable security" in Iraq by June 2009, a point at which the U.S. presence could be scaled back even more.

Although Petraeus did not define what that would mean for U.S. deployment, other senior officials have said the goal would be to get to a force of perhaps 50,000 once Iraq is secure enough for its own forces to take over. Whatever its precise size, that residual force would then remain for years, much as U.S. troops did in South Korea after the Korean War. Rather than be in the middle of sectarian warfare, the remainder force would engage only in counterterrorism, training, support and border protection. Leading Democrats have envisioned such a long-term smaller presence, as well.

But Bush did not address his extended plan that explicitly and made no commitment to do anything beyond the initial drawdown of forces sent for the buildup. And none of this goes far enough for leading Democrats, who want to pull out more troops, more rapidly. Still, White House aides expressed surprise that Democrats would not latch onto the concessions Bush has made. It is the first time the president has agreed to pull back any forces since last year's midterm elections overturned Republican control of Congress.

"For months and even years, we've heard this is a president who won't listen to alternative options, who won't listen to the idea of bringing troops home, who's so stubborn he won't do anything else," said White House spokeswoman Dana Perino. "It's a little bit surprising that Democrats wouldn't want to take yes for an answer."

Peter Rodman, a fellow at the Brookings Institution who recently left a senior job at the Pentagon, said he was particularly surprised at how Democratic presidential candidates reacted to Bush because they have a vested interest should they win the White House. "The next president is going to inherit this," Rodman said. "The better condition Iraq is in, the better the situation will be" for the next president. "If I were Hillary or Obama, I would be rooting for the surge."

Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.), another presidential candidate, acknowledged that some Democrats suggested taking credit for the modest drawdown the administration is ordering. But he said the suggestions were quickly overruled. Democrats, he said, would contradict their own claim of credit when they pointed out that the withdrawals were dictated more by deployment schedules than by conditions in Iraq or political pressure at home.

"It was totally disingenuous," Biden said of colleagues who suggested claiming credit. "I think we made the right decisions. Both parties have been playing this game of not being honest with the American people. I think it would have made us look as bad as they are, the phonies that they're being."

The Senate will resume the Iraq debate tomorrow, and Democrats -- along with a growing number of moderate Republicans -- are determined to reach accord on measures that could change the course of the war, if not reverse it. A bipartisan group of moderate senators traveled to Iraq this weekend to assess the situation and to plot strategy on legislation that can win 60 votes and break a threatened Republican filibuster.

"We are going to have, number one, a reduction of forces, and number two, a change in mission, structuring it so we can have 60 votes in the United States Senate," Sen. Olympia J. Snowe (R-Maine) said by telephone from Baghdad yesterday.

One of their best opportunities to change policy, according to party strategists and White House aides, could be an amendment drafted by Sen. James Webb (D-Va.), a former Marine, to mandate that home leaves for troops last as long as their deployments.

The Pentagon now may keep units in Iraq as long as 15 months and send them back after 12 months of rest. Webb's measure could force the Bush administration to trim troop levels to comply with its requirements, and the White House opposes it. But it appears to be gaining momentum in the Senate, where it received 56 votes in July, just four shy of the 60 needed to break a filibuster.

Webb may have 60 this time with the return of Sen. Tim Johnson (D-S.D.) and some Republican converts. Brian C. Nick, chief of staff to Sen. Elizabeth Dole (R-N.C.), said she is looking at the proposal "very carefully" and has been influenced by a Marine helicopter pilot who told Bush that short stateside breaks are limiting training and wearing down families. "Nobody's in the same place they were a few years ago," Nick said.

If Webb's measure passes, it will be the first Iraq policy bill opposed by the White House to reach Bush's desk over a Republican filibuster. Still, it will not stop the war. In the end, analysts said, that will be up to Bush or his successor.

"It's very difficult to force a president, once you've given him power to go to war, to get him to change," said Lawrence Korb, a former Reagan Defense Department official now at the liberal Center for American Progress. "It's almost impossible for Congress to do that."