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Buying time to no purpose

As expected, President George Bush has vetoed a bill passed by both Houses of the U.S. Congress that enjoined him to begin withdrawing troops from Iraq from October 1, 2008 unless there was a dramatic improvement in the situation on the ground. In the Senate as well as the House of Representatives, the Democratic party is well short of the two-thirds majority required to overturn the veto. However, Mr. Bush and the Democrats cannot afford to prolong a stalemate on this issue. The bill in contention was essentially a financial measure to sanction $124 billion for the U.S. military forces occupying Iraq. With the bill falling through, the forces might run out of funds by the end of June unless a similar measure is passed. Recent opinion polls show that a majority of U.S. citizens support the plan for a troop withdrawal. But an equally strong majority wants Congress to re-pass the measure without setting a deadline once the President exercises his special power. Most Democrats would not like to be in a position where they could be accused of `betraying' the military. While negotiations are likely to begin soon, there is a good chance that Congress will eventually legislate on more or less the same lines. That bill might not set a deadline but is very likely to include benchmarks for the Iraqi government to meet.

These benchmarks will essentially be measures that the administration has been urging the Iraqi regime of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to take. The list of demands might include fresh legislation providing for the fair distribution of oil revenues; constitutional amendments to meet Sunni grievances; relaxation of the de-Ba'athification rules; provincial elections; dismantling of the sectarian militias; and steps for reconciliation between different communities. All these are measures the Maliki regime has repeatedly promised to carry out but has not even begun to initiate. There is virtually no chance that it will be any different this time round. Therefore another confrontation between the administration and Congress is in prospect before the year ends. The whole world is now aware that the U.S.-led occupation of Iraq, aside from being illegal, is a horrible misadventure; that the Pandora's box of violence and sectarianism it opened will only get worse; and that the occupation forces are trapped in a civil war that will not abate until they are gone. Under these circumstances, the misgivings on display in the Republican camp will only grow as the casualty count mounts. There is a good chance that the next time Congress sets a deadline for a pullout, the presidential veto might not be as effective.

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