As Long as American Forces are in Iraq there will be no Major Middle East War!
September 25, 2007
http://www.tribulationperiod.com/
Since American troops invaded Iran I have not believed there would be a major Middle East war until they departed.
I also knew that the key to when
they would be withdrawn was the person of President Bush, not the United States Congress, because the only way the Congress could get them home was to withdraw funding to support them in Iraq, which is about as likely as having ten inches of snow at Key West in August. So I particularly enjoyed the following article from the Los Angeles Times, which makes that point very concisely. And since I don’t believe our President is in any great hurry to see a disaster during a quick erratic withdrawal on his watch, nor will his replacement wish to see such a catastrophic event early on his or her watch, I do not see the possibility of a major Middle East war until late in 2009, with the most likely time for it guesstimated to begin at some point in time between 2010 and 2013.
Iran and Syria have no desire to start a war with a large number of American troops along vast stretches of their borders.
They know even a Democratic Congress would be likely to join Israel against them if our troops were still there, but if they had already been withdrawn at the time of Israel being attacked, it is quite unlikely that a liberal Congress and/or President would send them back in.
Begin Los Angeles Times Excerpt from World News
War and impotence
Having ceded control over Iraq policy to Bush, Congress must find a way
to influence him anyway.
September 24, 2007
As the Democrats rediscovered to their chagrin last week, Congress has little real power either to declare a war or to end one.
Having authorized the president to use force in Iraq, Congress has found itself stymied. The weak Democratic majority lacks the political power to compel President Bush to start bringing substantial numbers of troops home, yet it is afraid to use the constitutional clout it does have: the authority to cut off war funding.
Most Americans say they want the U.S. engagement in Iraq to be dramatically downsized or ended soon. But unless the antiwar forces in
the Senate can attract the so-far elusive, filibuster-proof 60 votes — and as of Friday, they were at least 12 votes short — the Iraq war may drag on well beyond the Bush presidency.
The Democrats’ current predicament is a testament to the enormous strength of the executive branch and the erosion of the powers of Congress, which hasn’t declared a war since 1941 and hasn’t gone to the mat with the president over any war since Vietnam. Since World War II, U.S. presidents have generally ignored what they considered to be congressional meddling, such as the War Powers Act of 1973 and the law cutting off U.S. aid to the Nicaraguan Contras.
And, generally, Americans have liked it this way.
In the Atomic Age, they reckoned a commander in chief would never have time to consult Congress before deciding whether to launch nuclear weapons.
And most preferred to have a strong president in charge of national security and trusted the military, not the politicians, to manage military operations.
Now, however, a Democratic Congress and a Republican president are themselves at war over a host of issues, including Iraq. Their conflict accurately reflects the bitter and sometimes frightening schism in our nation.
So it is no surprise that the antiwar forces in Congress too are stalemated. Last week, Senate Democrats mounted an ill-conceived, backdoor effort to force the president to withdraw troops from Iraq faster than he wants by requiring troops to spend more time at home between deployments. Whether such a measure would be constitutional — and we have doubts — it’s the worst kind of congressional micromanagement of military affairs. For reasons of principle and precedent, we’re lucky it failed.
But that doesn’t mean Congress should stop trying to chart the least damaging exit from Iraq. It should provide advice, welcome or not, and it must act if necessary to constrain a president’s unwise choices. For without a clear show of congressional strength, this president has no need or inclination to negotiate or compromise.
Thus the Senate was right on Friday to bring to a vote a measure that would have ordered most troops home from Iraq in nine months. That the measure fell short on a 47-47 vote is unimportant.
What matters is that the Senate Democratic leadership, even knowing
that it would lose, was willing to hold an up-or-down, gimmick-free vote on the toughest issue facing Congress today.
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