Concensus Building?

There appears to be a concensus building on passing a bill to fund the war. The current bill will be vetoed by Bush. John Murtha is putting together a "2 month bill" that would continue funding for two months without restrictions. Bush won't like that but I suspect he'd have to sign it. A bill of this type is a de facto timeline in that it firmly keeps Congress's fingers in the Iraq war pie.

Another piece of conventional wisdom is that by summer we'll assuredly know how well things are going in Iraq and be able to have a concensus judgement on the war. I'm going to make a prediction right now. By September, anti-war folks will continue to scream about how bad it's going in Iraq and conservatives will point to anecdotal evidence of improvement, using their point of view as justification to ask for another Friedman Unit of two (the Pentagon is already planning to extend the escalation). The popularity of the war can't get much lower in the polls, but that won't stop Bush from claiming "progress". As I've said before, the wildcard will be Republicans who are getting closer to election time.

And the beat will go on.

Personally, I don't think it will matter if the security situation "improves" or not. Since we've abandoned the idea of turning security over to Iraqi's, the U.S. is responsible for security which begins an open-ended committment. An "improved" security situation, which may mean that there 50% fewer suicide bombings or that violence is outside Baghdad, will still be a horrible situation by any civilized standard. And like a misbehaving child, control will only stay resident as long as the American security pressure is resident.

The Iraq war can only end with a political reconciliation between all the different conflicting parties. The real question to be answered is, can that occur with an American presence? Pro-war advocates say it can. Anti-war proponents say it cannot. And the real problem is that those who advocate continuing the war will always point to the hopeful horizon for evidence to support their view, while those of us who see the situation as unreconcilable with a U.S. presence will continue to point to recent history for evidence that our continued occupation is futile.

Again, the swing will be the Republicans .... how long they hold out. On a purely political level, I hope they hold out a long time. It will destroy the neoconservative movement. Of course, I would welcome a Republican revolt tomorrow that would get us out now. Just remember this. Bush is a jackass. The harder you push, the more he resists. Republicans will have to figuratively shoot that jackass and move him out of the way. If they don't. Voters will make them pay.