Playing Texas hold ?em in Iraq

Here’s a puzzle: If President Bush really thinks he’s holding all the cards in his impending showdown with congressional Democrats over Iraq funding, why bother with a veto?

On previous occasions when Congress passed laws Bush found irksome, he’s quietly issued “signing statements” declaring, in essence, that the president is a law unto himself. Statutes Bush doesn’t like, he vows to ignore.

He’s done it scores of times. He did it with the FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act), granting himself the authority to indulge in warrantless wiretaps, contrary to law. He did it again with the 2006 Patriot Act, signing a bill mandating reports to Congress about the FBI’s use of “National Security Letters,” but asserting that the president needn’t comply. It’s no coincidence the Justice Department’s inspector general later found widespread FBI abuses of privacy rights.

So why not just issue another signing statement saying Congress can pass all the resolutions it wants, but U.S. troops won’t be leaving Iraq until The Decider gives the order? Two somewhat paradoxical reasons: First, the stakes are too high, because everybody’s watching. Bush may be commander in chief, but the United States isn’t yet a military dictatorship. Second, some Republicans have convinced themselves they’ve got the Democrats where they want them.

A Washington Post poll shows 56 percent favor pulling U.S. forces out of Iraq “even if that means civil order is not restored there.” The public is far ahead of the Beltway opinion elite. This president is no longer trusted. Once people make that fundamental decision, they rarely change their minds. They’ve pretty much had it with Bush, Cheney and their far-fetched World War II analogies. They understand that Iraq’s not a war; it’s a military occupation, and a catastrophically bungled one.

When as relentless a hawk as former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger says, as recently in Tokyo, that, “a ‘military victory’ in the sense of total control over the whole territory, imposed on the entire population, is not possible,” Americans no longer believe that any conceivable Iraqi government is worth the cost in lives and treasure. They recognize the childishness of basing U.S. policy on Al Qaeda taunts, as Bush and Cheney have done repeatedly.

Bush’s most strenuous defenders look ever more ridiculous. Holy Joe Lieberman recently wrote a USA Today column claiming, “sectarian violence is down in Baghdad,” and lamenting that “just at the moment things are at last beginning to look up in Iraq, a narrow majority in Congress has decided that it’s time to force our military to retreat.”

Let’s not notice that this is maybe Lieberman’s 10th announcement of impending triumph. Violence has risen sharply across Iraq. Last week’s Tal Afar truck bombing killed 152 people, the single bloodiest incident since Saddam’s overthrow. Shiite police rounded up and murdered 65 Sunnis in reprisal. Got that? Iraqi police are sectarian insurgents.

Then there’s Sen. John McCain. The famous straight-talking maverick recently got insulted by cheeky CNN reporter Michael Ware, who called McCain’s claim that an American could safely walk through many Baghdad neighborhoods “beyond ludicrous.” Stung, McCain flew to Baghdad with a delegation of hawkish senators who bravely visited the city’s Shorja market — wearing flak jackets, guarded by 100 U.S. soldiers, three Blackhawk helicopters and two Apache gunships.

The next day, 21 Shiite workers were kidnapped leaving the market. Their blindfolded, handcuffed bodies were found in a nearby village.

Any questions?

Arkansas Democrat-Gazette columnist Gene Lyons can be reached at [email protected].