Wednesday, September 12, 2007

For four Democratic presidential candidates, yesterday's Iraq hearings offered a high-profile platform to challenge President Bush on Iraq. For the lone Senate Republican seeking the White House, the hearings were an opportunity to boost his struggling candidacy by embracing what the top two U.S. officials in Iraq said were signs of progress.

The nearly 10 hours of testimony by Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, the commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, and U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan C. Crocker before two Senate committees featured a decided political edge that was missing from their Monday appearances before a House committee.

As significant as the coming congressional debate over Bush's policy may turn out to be, the 2008 presidential campaign may prove to be the ultimate forum for rendering judgment on the question asked repeatedly yesterday: "What next?"

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) charged that accepting the two officials' assessment of the success of the troop surge strategy required "the willing suspension of disbelief."

Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) sounded what seemed like a conciliatory note by saying he was among those interested in a bipartisan compromise in Congress, but said Bush's bravado has gotten in the way. He said public patience with the war was nearly exhausted. "At what point do we say, 'Enough'?" he asked.

Meanwhile, Sen. John McCain (Ariz.), the lone Republican among the five candidates on stage yesterday, threw down a stark challenge to the Democrats. "I believe we cannot choose to lose in Iraq," he said.

The sobering reality for all those seeking the presidency is that the ultimate decision on when and how to wind down the U.S. mission in Iraq may well fall to one of them. The withdrawal timeline laid out by Petraeus means that, as the general election campaign enters its final months next year, there still may be as many as 130,000 troops left in Iraq.

For now, however, the fierce debate over Bush's policy is what is shaping the presidential campaign dialogue. It is a debate waged not only between the major political parties, as McCain's words suggested, but also among the Democratic candidates. The Petraeus-Crocker hearings offered a chance for the Democratic candidates not just to probe and prod and challenge the assessments and recommendations of the two officials but also to highlight subtle distinctions among themselves, as well.

But their remarks differed in tone and focus, reflecting an uncertainty that has gripped Democrats as they debate how hard to press in the weeks ahead for legislation to force Bush to change strategy.

Sen. Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.), a onetime war supporter, has aggressively courted antiwar voters in recent months by advocating a funding cutoff next spring -- the most radical step in the legislative arsenal and one that stands zero chance of reaching the president's desk, at least in the foreseeable future.

"I'm withholding support for proposals without clear timelines in them," Dodd said during a break at the Foreign Relations Committee hearing. "Anything short of that I'll oppose."

Committee Chairman Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.), like Dodd a veteran lawmaker who lags badly in the presidential polls, delivered a 15-minute introductory statement that demonstrated his extensive knowledge of the conflict and the region and promoted his own solution for Iraq, partitioning the country into separate regions.

"We have to give the Iraqi warring factions a breathing room in regions with local control over the fabric of their daily lives -- police, education, jobs, marriage, religion, as, I might add, the Iraqi constitution calls for," Biden said. "A federal decentralized Iraq, in my view, is our last, best hope for a stable Iraq."

Most Democratic leaders, including Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (Nev.) and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (Calif.), now are willing to concede certain terms to moderate Republicans, such as their demand for a fixed withdrawal deadline, in order to pass a veto-proof bill. But war opponents in both the House and Senate are resisting such a strategic pivot, believing it would render any legislative outcome meaningless.

Obama, who opposed the original invasion, signaled his support for the consensus approach in remarks at the Foreign Relations Committee hearing yesterday morning. He noted Bush's recent comment to the Australian prime minister that the United States was "kicking A-S-S in Iraq."

"It makes it very difficult then for those of us who would like to join with you in a bipartisan way to figure out how to best move forward to extricate this from the day-to-day politics that infects Washington," Obama lamented.

But Obama isn't just looking for bipartisan compromise. He is seeking political advantage in his bid for the Democratic nomination, and plans an Iraq speech in Iowa today in which he is expected to draw distinctions with rivals and lay out new recommendations for ending U.S. involvement there.

By the time Clinton took the microphone yesterday evening in the Armed Services Committee, the room was largely empty. In a lawyerly approach, she challenged many of the conclusions offered by Petraeus and Crocker during their previous nine-plus hours of testimony in a Senate hearing room, after seven hours in the House on Monday.

Even more directly, she challenged the competence of the Bush administration. "Ambassador, it's not only the Iraqi government that, in my view, has to pursue a coherent strategy," she said. "I think our own has, as well."

-- Dan Balz and Shailagh Murray