Iraq and Region Update for April 18, 2008
Welcome to FCNL’s Biweekly Iraq and Region Update for April 18, 2008
This update includes reports on . . .
- partisan maneuvering as Congress gets ready to approve more war funding;
- support in the Senate for a diplomatic surge;
- President Carter, Hamas, and the Israeli-Palestinian Annapolis peace process
I. In Congress
War Funding and Electoral Politics
“We will meet the needs of our troops, but we will meet the needs of our people at home, too,” Sen. Robert Byrd (WV), the chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, declared on April 16.
As Congress prepares to consider more than $100 billion in additional funding for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, efforts to improve the situation in Iraq seem to be taking a back seat to electoral politics. Leaders of both parties seem primarily interested in demonstrating their support for U.S troops and their concern about the domestic economy. Although both are serious issues that Congress should address, they are upstaging efforts to change U.S. policy in Iraq. In the end, we expect that Congress will provide most, and probably all, of the war funding that the administration is requesting without significantly altering the war’s course.
In our lobby visits some people have suggested that Congress might appropriate less than the remaining $102 billion of the administration’s fiscal year 2008 war-funding request; Iraq, they argue, should help pay for the war by tapping into its $30 billion oil revenue surplus. Alternatively, Congress could decide to make this a “super-supplemental” funding bill and add an additional $70 billion in war funding to cover the first part of the 2009 fiscal year, which begins this October. This would allow Congress to avoid another vote on Iraq war funds before the November election.
Eager to demonstrate their support for U.S. troops, Democrats will likely introduce an amendment to the supplemental funding bill requiring equal periods of home leave for time deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan. Both Democrats and Republicans plan to attach domestic spending measures to the war supplemental—perhaps as much as $20 billion—to address the condition of the domestic economy. President Bush says that he will veto the war supplemental if it has a large amount of funding for domestic programs attached.
In the midst of the politicking over the supplemental, pockets of bipartisan support persist on two crucial Iraq policy issues: (1) the need for inclusive regional diplomacy to end the war (see section III below and read a report on the ideas of new House Foreign Affairs Committee Chair Howard Berman (CA) for a “grand bargain” with Iran on Iraq, Iran’s nuclear program, and regional issues), and (2) the need to prevent the Bush administration from pre-empting the next president’s Iraq policy decisions by negotiating an executive agreement with Iraq this year. FCNL will be working to keep these issues in the debate as Congress votes on more war funding.
Senators and Diplomacy
Senators continue to publicly state their support for diplomatic efforts. “Where is the diplomatic surge?” Sen. Chuck Hagel (NE) asked U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker at hearings last week, in response to Crocker’s assertion that the administration had launched a diplomatic counterpart to last year’s troop surge. “I don’t see Secretary Rice doing any Kissinger-esque flying around,” Hagel said. “In my opinion [diplomacy] is the one core issue that in the end is going to make the difference as to the outcome of Iraq.”
Last week’s hearings with Crocker, U.S. commander in Iraq Gen. David Petraeus, and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice produced other endorsements of regional diplomacy, including a call from Sen. Arlen Specter (PA) for unconditional negotiations with Iran. Specter told Rice, “I think it’s insulting to go to another person or another country and say we’re not going to talk to you unless you agree to something in advance. What we want them to do is stop enriching uranium. That’s the object of the talks. How can we insist on their agreeing to the object that we want as a precondition to having the talks?”
II. Annapolis Peace Process Watch
Carter, Hamas, and Israel
“I know that there are some officials in the Israeli government that are quite willing to meet with Hamas and maybe that will happen in the near future,” former President Jimmy Carter told reporters in Cairo after meeting with Palestinian Hamas leaders from the Gaza Strip. “One of the reasons I wanted to come and meet with the Syrians and Hamas was to set an example that might be emulated by others,” he said. Carter has been widely criticized for his high-profile visit to the Middle East to meet with Hamas leaders. Israeli and U.S. officials have so far refused any direct contact with Hamas, arguing that it is a terrorist organization bent on Israel’s destruction, though polls show nearly two-thirds of Israelis in favor of negotiations and a cease-fire with Hamas. Carter also called the Israeli blockade on the Gaza Strip “a crime and an atrocity” and said U.S. and Israeli attempts to isolate Hamas have been counterproductive.
A Correction to the Previous Update
The last Update omitted a link to additional information, including a report by the Israeli Peace Now movement. Click here for the link. (Note: The lull in fighting in Gaza that we reported in the last update has ended, as more than 20 Palestinians and several Israeli soldiers were killed in Gaza this week.)
III. Keep on Lobbying
FCNL’s efforts for inclusive regional diplomacy to stabilize Iraq and transform U.S. relations with the Middle East gained new energy on April 2, when six Democrats joined five Republicans to introduce a new bill. H.Con.Res. 321, like H.R. 3797 and H.R. 2574 that FCNL has been lobbying for, calls for the comprehensive U.S. diplomatic initiative in the Middle East recommended by the Iraq Study Group.
Urge your member of Congress to cosponsor H.Con.Res. 321. This bill is another opportunity for you to impress upon your representative the necessity of smart regional diplomacy to end the Iraq war. In support, you could quote Admiral William Fallon, who recently resigned as commander of U.S. forces in the Middle East. Speaking of Iraq’s neighbors, he said, “From my perspective, we are not going to be able to help to solve the problems inside [Iraq] without assistance from outside.”
IV. Articles, Documents, and Reports
New Pro-Israel, Pro-Peace “J Street Lobby and PAC” Launched in DC
“My family has suffered and survived the pogroms of the tsars, the gas chambers of the Nazis and wars with Israel’s Arab neighbors,” the executive director of the new Jewish-American “J-Street Lobby,” Jeremy Ben-Ami, writes in the Jewish Daily Forward. Ben-Ami asserts “that what today passes for pro-Israel politics in the United States does not serve the best interests of the people or the countries my family has lived and died for.” The new lobby, he says, will better represent those interests.
The Strategic Interests That Iran and the United States Share in Iraq
“Iran could be part of America’s ticket out of the Iraq quagmire,” says Stephen Kinzer, a veteran New York Times foreign correspondent. Kinzer suggests that Iran is “holding back” to stabilize Iraq “because they fear that the US might use a stable Iraq as a base from which to attack Iran.”
Israeli Peace Group Says Annapolis Has Been a “Launching Pad for New Unilateral Israeli Actions in East Jerusalem”
Ir Amim, an Israeli peace group that monitors developments in Jerusalem, reports that the Annapolis Summit, “instead of serving to catalyze political agreement,” has allowed Israel to continued expanding settlements, demolishing houses, breaking up gatherings of Palestinian civil society, and taking other actions that “cast . . . a heavy shadow not only on the sincerity of the negotiations, but on the very chance of their success.” (See “Monitoring Report – April 2008” on the Ir Amim website.)