Decius wrote:
Eh? They're looking for a US withdrawl from Iraq in the short term.

As it happens, so are a majority of Americans.

Congress cannot pass a withdrawl bill that won't get vetoed. Congress knows this. The grand battle you are watching is 100% political theater. How could it be anything else. They can't do anything.

They can't do anything except represent their constituency. If Bush vetoes it, fine, let him. It's not 6 of one, half dozen of the other. A bill that fails in congress, one hopes, fails because it lacks support of the people. A bill that's vetoed by the president represents a COMPLETELY different situation and one that's important to make clear to the public.

Beyond which, claiming that there's some sort of CAUSAL link between the situation in the senate and the politicalization of the Sunnis in Iraq doesn't make any sense. If anything the timing of their announcement might have been affected by the current debate. But the Sunnis didn't just decide, a couple days ago, to get all friendly because the silly American congress is engaged in procedural shenanigans. It's a separate issue.

The issue in the senate is the over-use (which I conceive of as a mis-use) of a particular procedural rule in order to a) shield the president from having to actually exercise that veto power and b) produce a chilling effect on the ability of the opposition to even propose a bill. I'm not naive, I understand that blocking the majority is part of running the country, but there's a line somewhere between acceptable levels of opposition and outright obstruction.

RE: Insurgents form political front to plan for US pullout