Republicans Sure Americans Prefer Flawed Decisiveness to Divided Anxiety

The Republican strategy to focus attention on the war in Iraq is simple: no matter how upset people are by President Bush's handling of the war, doubts about the direction Democrats might set on national security are worse. House Republicans planned an election-year debate on Iraq to show support for U.S. troops, but more importantly to force lawmakers, particularly Democrats, to take a position on withdrawing American forces from the conflict. On Friday, when the House votes on a nonbinding resolution that praises U.S. troops, identifies Iraq as part of the larger War on Terror and says an "arbitrary date for the withdrawal or redeployment" of troops would threaten national security, Democrats remain divided.

Democrats decried the debate and vote as a politically motivated sham, and some said they would vote against the measure even though Republicans would then almost certainly try to claim that Democrats don't support U.S. troops. A handful of Republicans who have publicly expressed misgivings about the war also were expected to oppose the resolution.

Through a series of high-profile efforts culminating Thursday and Friday with sustained House and Senate debates on the war, the White House and congressional Republicans are aiming to portray Democrats as too soft and too divided to steer the Iraq conflict to a successful conclusion.

In the process, Republicans risk deepening their identification with a war that, surveys show, still sparks skepticism and concern among most Americans — even after the spike in public support that followed the killing of Abu Musab Zarqawi, the leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq.

In Thursday's debates on Capitol Hill, Republicans argued that Democrats would withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq too quickly. But they also provided the opportunity for a succession of Democrats to argue that Bush would stay too long. Democrats in the past have not done well in organized public arguments over Iraq because members of the party often share vastly different opinions of the war.

The spectacle of Congress plunging into a substantive, heartfelt and relatively civil debate on the merits of the war reflects the urgency that lawmakers feel about addressing what has become a volatile political situation with midterm congressional elections looming in November. Democrats are trying to capitalize on voters' disenchantment, while Republicans are trying to portray themselves as resolute and strong.

The House vote comes one day after the Senate soundly rejected a call to withdraw combat troops by year's end by shelving a proposal that would allow "only forces that are critical to completing the mission of standing up Iraqi security forces" to remain in Iraq in 2007.

That vote was 93-6, but despite voting for it, Democrats criticized the GOP maneuver that led to the vote as political gamesmanship and promised further debate next week on a proposal to start redeploying troops this year.

• June 16, 2006

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