Give the President Sufficient Rope to Surge

Although Congressman John Murtha is leading an effort to withhold funds for the President's troop surge, Congress will ultimately allow the President's troop surge to go forward. Succeed or fail it is the President's troop surge, and his Iraq strategy.

If Congress pulls the plug on more troops, it would be Congress's Iraq strategy. Failure in Iraq, and the increase in Iran's geopolitical influence would be Congress's failure.

Rather than risk taking the blame, Congress is going to give Bush all the rope with which he needs to hang himself. That is my prediction.

My hope, however, is that Congress will try to prevent a troop surge. If they take this route, they must give the President an unabiguous directive. They must, pursuant to Section 5(c) of the War Powers Resolution, preclude any additional deployment of United States Armed Forces to the operations in Iraq. Congress must explicitly refused to authorize or appropriate the use of funds for an increase in troop levels. This is necessary to establish an actual confrontation between the legislative and executive branches sufficient to confer standing to Congress in the U.S. Supreme Court should the President disobey their directive and should they seek intervention of the judicial branch. (Campbell vs Clinton).

That's the legal side. But the political side could be influenced by the voices of the people. How strongly do the people feel against a troop surge? Is it strong enough that the Congressional offices are going to be flooded with phone calls and correspondence? Are vast numbers of people going to demand meetings with their Senators and Representatives to voice opposition to an escalation? If not, the Democratic leadership will exercise the "give-him-enough-rope" option.

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