Now that Bush has vetoed Congress’s first attempt to end the war, what’s the next move?

Some Democrats will complain about the President’s actions, talk about his distance from reality, and ridicule his idiotic stubbornness. Then they’ll vote for a bill that gives him more or less exactly what he wants: all the money and none of the strings. They’ll justify this cowardly action, aimed solely at improving their own career paths, with two contradictory excuses.

The exoteric statement will imply that the Democrats support the troops as much as the White House, and will pledge to work through other channels to change the President’s mind. In other words, it will be largely an admission of surrender in the battle to stop the war, plus a pledge not to surrender next time. Or at least to find some future time at which surrender will not happen. Cheese, anyone?

The esoteric view, understood in (most of) the restaurants frequented by Senators, Members of Congress, and Presidential hopefuls, will in essence be a calculation that the danger of confronting the President on the war is too great; so the best thing to do is to wait him out. Withdrawing funding, which is clearly the only tactic that will make the administration pay attention, might cause some occupancy changes on the Hill, whereas a President committed to a vastly unpopular war will be an albatross for any Republican running in 2008 who can’t point to a lot of anti-Bush votes between now and then. In particular, the Republicans will need to nominate a serious gymnast for President, someone who can connect with party faithful, about half of whom still believe in the war, and yet will have some chance of attracting votes from the two-thirds of the population that thinks the war was a bad idea to begin with.

My guess is the Enabler Caucus will boast at least Clinton, Biden, and Obama from the current crop of Presidential hopefuls. Of course, events could certainly intervene to change facts and opinions. I’d love to move Barack out of this group; but his own statements clearly place him in this group for now.

The Dissenter Caucus certainly includes Kucinich, Gravel, and Edwards, and probably Dodd, at least in most circumstances.

As for me, despite the moral and legal transgression of invading a country that didn’t threaten us, I’d be willing to consider leaving troops there for a short period if it would help Iraqis get things together, but that ain’t gonna happen. War supporters posit a bloodbath if we leave, but that’s obviously already taking place; the fault for which lies with the United States, and in particular with the planners and executors of the war, who are guilty of war crimes and crimes against peace, and possibly crimes against humanity as well, according to the definitions we established for the trials at Nuremberg after the Second World War. But that was, I admit, pre-9/11.

So it seems to me that it’s our duty as citizens to tell Congress that we want the war ended, as this Edwards commercial, now running in a few states, advocates.

We should also let Democratic Presidential hopefuls know that vague generalities followed by capitulation on the actual vote will be punished in the primaries.

Of course this is easy for people like Edwards, not currently in office, to say. If you’re in Congress, you might be inclined to believe that your continuance in office is ipso facto good for the country, because what you want is good stuff, and you’ve learned something about how to work the system. Thus, political calculations to keep yourself in office also work to the benefit of the country. What’s good for you is what’s good for America.

But at some point morality must trump ambition. A commmitted citizen would, in my opinion, finally reach a point where calculations of personal gain would be swept aside by the national need. And what this nation needs is to be out of Iraq.