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Leaving an Occupied Country Is Hard To Do
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Issue
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| Contributor | RP |
| Last Edited | RP Apr 02, 2008 08:49pm |
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| Category | Proposed Legislation |
| Media | Weekly News Magazine - New Republic, The |
| News Date | Thursday, April 3, 2008 02:00:00 AM UTC0:0 |
| Description | What--a thoughtful plan for Iraq? Written by aspiring Democratic House members? Campaigning in highly competitive districts? Believe it.
"A Responsible Plan" represents a welcome shift for the party not just in vision, but in substance. Admittedly, the immediate strategy that it outlines for Iraq is standard Democratic fare. It calls for a drawdown of American forces and a focus on a diplomatic and political solution. But while too many Democratic plans zero in on the troop drawdown, the "Responsible Plan"'s emphasis is on what Congress can reasonably achieve: namely, economic, political, and humanitarian steps necessary to manage the situation in Iraq as American forces leave.
Beyond just being good policy, though, the plan exhibits a unique understanding of the legislative branch's role in foreign policy. Too often, candidates running for Congress make very specific proposals about foreign policy that are far outside of their purview. The "Real Security" plan of 2006 was ultimately about the executive branch; it was backed by a 120-page smattering of documents and reports that criticized the Bush Administration and catalogued hundreds of pieces of legislation that would reshape American foreign policy, but were, on the whole, too unwieldy to act as an agenda vehicle.
"A Responsible Plan" would instead serve as the congressional corollary to a Democratic presidency. It doesn't include elements over which Congress has little control, but it does push for 15 pieces of existing legislation, which focus on issues such as improving healthcare for a new generation of veterans and phasing out our reliance on military contractors such as Blackwater. Only the president can end the war in Iraq, but Congress can do its share by focusing on institutional repair and funding the right programs.
This approach is apparent in the most creative part of the document, titled "Preventing Future Iraqs." These policies focus on checking presidential authority and ensuring that Congress can't easily give the president a free hand to go to war. It calls for incorporating war funding into the regular defense budget instead of using "emergency supplementals"; eliminating the president's use of signing statements to alter the substantive meaning of a law passed by Congress; repealing parts of the Military Commissions Act that suspended habeas corpus; and ending the use of wiretapping without a FISA warrant. These are good policies for both Republican and Democratic presidents to abide by. |
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