Last Thursday, by a vote of 50-48, the Senate rejected a Democratic resolution to withdraw most American combat troops from Iraq in early 2008. The House Appropriations Committee, meanwhile, approved an emergency spending bill for Iraq and Afghanistan that includes a timeline for withdrawal from Iraq. The full House is expected to vote on that legislation later this week. In the words of the New York Times, "The action in both houses threw into sharp relief the Democratic strategy of ratcheting up the pressure, vote by vote, to try to force the White House to begin withdrawing troops from Iraq."
Given these unfolding events, it is worth taking a step back and holding up to scrutiny the effort by Democrats.
Handcuffing Our Commanders: In wartime, day-to-day military operations are not neatly broken down into arbitrary categories that can be codified into law. Under proposals by Democrats, for example, the military might have to increase the number of lawyers to scrutinize battlefield decisions by military commanders. Do we really want our commanders on the ground to debate whether specific patrols represent allowable activity (under the banner of "protecting United States and Coalition personnel") or whether they amount to other, prohibited combat operations? Do we really want our commanders to rely on lawyers to determine if hot pursuit of an illegal militia would be allowed as "conducting targeted counterterrorism operations" or be prohibited as "policing a civil war"?
The plan by Democrats to micromanage the war is simply unworkable. There is no precedent in American history for succeeding in a war when the commanders were taking battlefield direction from Members of the House and Senate. In the words of the Los Angeles Times (in an editorial titled, "Do We Really Need A Gen. Pelosi?"):
"It was one thing for the House to pass a nonbinding vote of disapproval. It's quite another for it to set out a detailed timetable with specific benchmarks and conditions for the continuation of the conflict. Imagine if Dwight Eisenhower had been forced to adhere to a congressional war plan in scheduling the Normandy landings or if, in 1863, President Lincoln had been forced by Congress to conclude the Civil War the following year. This is the worst kind of congressional meddling in military strategy."
Volte-Face: Not all that long ago, leading Democrats thought arbitrary and rigid timetables were a very bad idea. Speaking at the National Press Club in 2005, now-Majority Leader Harry Reid said this: