'Just World News' with Helena Cobban

Republican realists' resurgence grows

Another Republican Senator, New Mexico's Pete Domenici, has thrown his hat into the "stop the surge" ring, bringing to four the number of GOP senators who are now clearly lined up in opposition to Bush's petulant "stay the course" course.

In a press conference yesterday, Domenici said,

We cannot continue asking our troops to sacrifice indefinitely while the Iraqi government is not making measurable progress... I do not support an immediate withdrawal from Iraq or a reduction in funding for our troops. But I do support a new strategy that will move our troops out of combat operations and on the path to coming home.

Actually, I wrote above that Domenici's change of heart brings the number of Resurgent Republican Realists in the senate to four (him, Lugar, Voinovich, and Warner.) But we should probably add in there Sens. Chuck Hagel and Gordon Smith, who made their opposition to the surge policy public some time ago-- and possibly also the two women GOP senators from Maine, Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins.

On Tuesday, Hagel was back home in Nebraska, where he "received a standing ovation in Lincoln Tuesday after speaking for more than two hours on Iraq and immigration."

That news account there continues,

About 300 people periodically applauded during Hagel’s pre-July 4th Town Hall meeting at the University of Nebraska campus.

Hagel wants a phased withdrawal of troops from Iraq. He also called for an international mediator to improve Iraq’s government and stop sectarian violence.

There is a gradual disintegration of the Iraqi government and it has failed to meet benchmarks for progress, he said...

“I know this issue,” he said. “I knew this (war) was wrong. I believe it’s the biggest foreign policy blunder in the history of this country. I’m not afraid to say what I believe.”

The Bushites have been hoping to avoid having either house of Congress do anything definitive on Iraq until September, when Gen Petraeus and Amb. Crocker are scheduled to come back and make some kind of a progress report on the "surge".

But it now looks as though the RRRs are gaining in strength so rapidly that the Senate will want to do something much sooner than that.

The speculation in the WaPo and elsewhere is now that the Iraq Study Group Implementation Act might provide the vehicle for this action.

Go to that last link to find out more about the ISGIA.

As I wrote about the ISG when it came out,

The ISG report did not urge two of the key steps that I consider essential if the US is to be able to undertake a troop withdrawal from Iraq that is orderly, speedy, total, and generous. It did not urge that President Bush publicly specify a deadline or timetable for the completion of the US withdrawal. And it did not urge giving the key role in sponsoring the diplomacy required to allow this withdrawal to the U.N. However what it did recommend was a quantum-leap improvement over the policies still being pursued and advocated by the President. In particular, I think its call for US engagement with Iran and Syria as part of the strategy of managing and deconflicting the imbroglio in Iraq is both necessary and long overdue.

(I note that Hagel shares my view that an international mediating framework is required for this diplomacy to work. That's good.)

It is evident from what Sen. Domenici and Sen Smith have said that contact from their constituents in their home-states has been very important in helping them shift into the RRR camp. I therefore urge all US readers of JWN to join the campaign that the Friends Committee on National Legislation is running to persuade people to contact contact their senators-- regardless of party affiliation-- and urge support for the ISGIA.

Do it today! We the people can start to regain control over our government's policy in Iraq.