by Jules Witcover

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (c) Kevin Kreneck
Nancy Pelosi

Any doubt that President Obama has taken ownership of the war in Afghanistan has been erased by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in her year-end declaration that "the president is going to have to make his case" for the 30,000 troop surge there.

The speaker, a longtime leader of Democratic liberals who call for extracting the United States from both wars in the Middle East, has thus served notice on the White House she is not going to ask like-minded House Democrats to vote for the $30 billion or more for the additional forces. Her message to Obama is clear: It's your surge; you defend it.

In practical terms, however, Pelosi's stand is more a personal declaration of independence on this one issue than any major break with Obama. With heavy Republican support for financing the surge, there is little question that the money will be authorized, as was the case throughout the George W. Bush presidency.

But aware of the deep disappointment among anti-war Democrats about Obama's quick-fix decision on Afghanistan, the speaker has told them that any vote for intensifying the war "is a vote of conscience." That is, as far as she is concerned, they must be left to make up their own minds about it without any prodding from her.

That decision passes the ball to the White House, which puts the Democratic president in the awkward position of relying on votes in the House from an opposition party that on virtually every other major issue has thumbed its collective nose at him this year.

The result is likely to be a sham battle. Obama and his national security team will be preaching to the choir of Republican hawks who need no convincing that the troops in the field must be given the weapons and other support they need, regardless of what is thought about the wisdom of the surge.

It figures to be a replay of what happened when Bush asked for and got the money he needed to bankroll his 2007-8 troop surge into Iraq that many liberal Democrats deplored and predicted would not work. Some of them now say it did succeed in Iraq, with violence there declining, while noting that suicide attacks continue, as seen in the recent multiple bombings in Baghdad that claimed at least 127 lives.

Among those who opposed the surge in Iraq and predicted its failure was then Democratic Sen. Joe Biden, now the vice president. But he declined to vote then to deny full support of Americans in the field, and that same basic argument applied to the Afghanistan surge will no doubt still carry the day in Congress.

A test vote on the latest troop surge is slated for next month in a privileged resolution in the House by Rep. Dennis Kucinich of Ohio, the body's most outspoken and relentless foe of the two wars. As in the past, it will easily be defeated by a combination of Republican and moderate Democratic votes, but there may be some measure of the residual anti-war sentiment there.

In a sense, this vote could be a temporary safety valve through which liberal Democratic critics of Obama's decision to step up military pressure in Afghanistan can let off steam. Pelosi has indicated her hope to that effect, saying, "there are many members in the (House Democratic) caucus who are eager to have a vote soon on Afghanistan. This may satisfy that need. We shall see."

Meanwhile, the speaker remains fully supportive of the president on his prime legislative initiative of health care reform. If the Senate finally passes its version, House and Senate conferees will still have to settle their differences, with Pelosi in the midst of that effort.

Obama has to hope that what Pelosi has called "serious unrest" in her House caucus over the Afghanistan surge decision that was so long in the making does not bleed into the health-care fight in any substantial way. Too much politically is at stake in that fight for him to fail in it now.

 

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Selling the Afghan War Surge | Jules Witcover

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