Broder: Suggester in chief

[babylonsister]

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/opinion/balance/stories/010507dnedibroder.1d99679.html

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The new Congress that starts today is not the same passive body that approved his decision to go to war and allowed him a free hand in managing or mismanaging the aftermath.

When the White House speculates about increasing the number of U.S. troops in Iraq for some indefinite period, it goes directly against the expressed policy wishes of the new Democratic majority and its most influential members. The incoming chairmen of the Senate Armed Services and Foreign Relations committees, Carl Levin and Joe Biden, have counseled strongly against such a course, and most of the Democrats in the House and Senate favor a gradual drawdown of American forces, not a buildup.

As commander in chief, the president can order more troops into the war zone, but such a step would undoubtedly provoke the most angry domestic debate of his term.

The larger point made by the Iraq Study Group in its unanimous bipartisan report is that no policy for Iraq can succeed without broad public and congressional support. The nation and its elected representatives, as co-chairmen James A. Baker III and Lee Hamilton warned, will not sustain the costs in lives and treasure it would take to rescue a deteriorating situation in Iraq unless there is broad agreement on the course of action.

Sending thousands more American troops into harm's way, when fewer than a fifth of Americans support such a step, is no way to build that support.

More and more of the president's fellow Republicans are making that point to him. Particularly significant were comments on Fox News on Sunday by Sen. Richard Lugar of Indiana, the outgoing chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee.

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