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Analysis: Iraq and the Surging Election Cycle

Council on Foreign Relations

July 9, 2007
Author: Robert McMahon

The White House quickly quashed (AP) a New York Times report citing increasing internal debates over a troop drawdown in Iraq. But at a time of some high-profile Republican challenges to Iraq policy, the Bush administration is bracing for a new wave of legislative pressure over Iraq before Congress recesses in August. The 2008 defense authorization bill up for debate in the Senate this week will likely prompt a flurry of proposals on everything from mandating a troop reduction (CQ) within 120 days to requiring the president to seek a new authorization for the Iraq war.

To supporters of President Bush’s surge strategy, now fully under way, the new criticism amounts to pandering in a supercharged election season. In the presidential race, Iraq has been a sharp dividing line between Republican and Democratic candidates. Democrats have seized on low public approval ratings for Bush’s war policy to call for a change in strategy that involves troop redeployments out of Iraq. The Wall Street Journal editorializes that most of the Democratic candidates want to “use Iraq as a partisan club to win the 2008 elections, and only then worry about the consequences.” CFR’s Max Boot calls it a “poll-driven cave-in” by Republicans occurring at a time when the Bush administration’s surge policy has barely begun.

Republican skeptics on Iraq like Sens. Pete Domenici (R-NM), Susan Collins (R-ME), and Chuck Hagel (R-NE) are up for reelection next year. But the biggest warning shout this summer has come from veteran Sen. Richard Lugar (R-IN), who easily won his seat again last November.

Read the rest of this article on the cfr.org website.

Copyright 2007 by the Council on Foreign Relations. This material is republished on GlobalSecurity.org with specific permission from the cfr.org. Reprint and republication queries for this article should be directed to cfr.org.