home > by publication type > daily analysis > Iraq and the Surging Election Cycle
Email
| Prepared by: |
|---|
Senator Lugar's speech reflected growing levels of concern and dissent regarding the Iraq war. (AP Images/Senate TV)
The White House quickly quashed (AP) a New York Times report citing increasing internal debates over a troop drawdown in Iraq. But at a time of some high-profile Republican challenges to Iraq policy, the Bush administration is bracing for a new wave of legislative pressure over Iraq before Congress recesses in August. The 2008 defense authorization bill up for debate in the Senate this week will likely prompt a flurry of proposals on everything from mandating a troop reduction (CQ) within 120 days to requiring the president to seek a new authorization for the Iraq war.
To supporters of President Bush’s surge strategy, now fully under way, the new criticism amounts to pandering in a supercharged election season. In the presidential race, Iraq has been a sharp dividing line between Republican and Democratic candidates. Democrats have seized on low public approval ratings for Bush’s war policy to call for a change in strategy that involves troop redeployments out of Iraq. The Wall Street Journal editorializes that most of the Democratic candidates want to “use Iraq as a partisan club to win the 2008 elections, and only then worry about the consequences.” CFR’s Max Boot calls it a “poll-driven cave-in” by Republicans occurring at a time when the Bush administration’s surge policy has barely begun.
Republican skeptics on Iraq like Sens. Pete Domenici (R-NM), Susan Collins (R-ME), and Chuck Hagel (R-NE) are up for reelection next year. But the biggest warning shout this summer has come from veteran Sen. Richard Lugar (R-IN), who easily won his seat again last November. Lugar’s floor speech late last month to recalibrate Iraq strategy was a call to alarm that the “constraints of our own domestic political process,” along with other factors were hampering the government’s ability to engineer a solution to the conflict. Put another way, Bush is approaching a moment where he is “in danger of losing control of the war” if Republicans in Congress begin to abandon him, writes Byron York of the National Review. That moment is expected to be in September when U.S. commander Gen. David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker deliver status reports. In the interim, administration officials are due to deliver a report by this weekend on the “benchmarks” measuring progress in Iraq. A recent Congressional Research Service report finds poor performance (PDF) by the Iraqi government.
Of more long-term concern, say some analysts and lawmakers, is the degree to which U.S. foreign policy has become polarized. The ranking Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R-MI), told Fox News that partisan arguments over Iraq policy point to a greater need to have a “national debate about do we believe that radical jihadists are a threat to U.S. security in the long term.” This is reflected in views of the 2008 presidential candidates, with Republicans indicating far more concern than Democrats about a long-term struggle against jihadi forces. CFR Senior Fellow Charles A. Kupchan and Peter L. Trubowitz, senior fellow at the Robert S. Strauss Center for Security and International Law, write in the latest Foreign Affairs: “On the most basic questions of U.S. grand strategy—the sources and purposes of U.S. power, the use of force, the role of international institutions—representatives of the two parties are on different planets.”
Weigh in on this issue by emailing CFR.org.
To order Task Force reports, Council Special Reports, and Critical Policy Choices, please call, fax, or order online from our distributor, the Brookings Institution Press: phone +1.800.537.5487, fax +1.410.516.6998.
For information on other reports that are not for sale, or for general publications information, please call +1.212.434.9516 or email publications@cfr.org.
Start-Up Nation addresses the trillion-dollar question: How is it that Israel—a country of 7.1 million, only sixty years old, surrounded by enemies— produces more start-up companies than large, peaceful, and stable nations like Japan, China, India, Korea, Canada, and the UK? With the insights of geopolitical experts and investors, the authors examine this nation’s adversity-driven culture to answer this question and offer prescriptions for a global economy on the rebound.
In Forces of Fortune, Vali Nasr presents a paradigm-changing revelation that will transform the understanding of the Muslim world at large. He reveals that there is a vital but unseen rising force in the Islamic world—a new business-minded middle class—that is building a vibrant new Muslim world economy and that holds the key to winning the cold war against Iran and extremists.
In Cuba: What Everyone Needs to Know, Julia E. Sweig presents a remarkably accessible portrait of Cuba's unique place on the world stage over the past fifty years, including its internal politics, its often fraught relationship with the United States, and its shifting relationship with the global community.
Complete list of CFR Books
The report of this bipartisan Task Force of distinguished leaders and experts represents a strong consensus on the importance of repairing America's immigration policy. It makes the case that maintaining America's political and economic leadership depends on attracting talented and hard-working immigrants, and on securing the country's borders in a smart, effective, and humane way.
This report finds that nuclear weapons will remain a fundamental element of U.S. national security in the near term, and makes recommendations on how to ensure the safety, security, and reliability of the U.S. deterrent nuclear force, prevent nuclear terrorism, and strengthen the nuclear nonproliferation regime.
About Independent Task Forces at CFR
Complete list of Task Force reports
Identifying international threats and acting on them may be the most difficult job for U.S. policymakers. This report
provides an actionable road map for managing international threats before they erupt into crises and makes a strong case that preventive action is not a luxury but a necessity.
For more than a decade, the United States has mostly watched from the sidelines as Asian countries organize themselves into an alphabet soup of new multilateral groups. In this report, the authors review the relationship between pan-Asian and trans-Pacific institutions and suggest policy guidelines for a new U.S. approach to this new Asian landscape.
Complete list of Council Special Reports
To request permission to reprint or reuse CFR material, please fill out this permissions request form (PDF), referring to the instructions on page 1.
Copyright 2009 by the Council on Foreign Relations. All Rights Reserved.