'Toothless' Congress resolution might end up having real bite

It's toothless because it doesn't do anything concrete to stop or reverse Bush's decision to send 21,500 more troops to Iraq in a strategy aimed at building enough security in Baghdad to make political progress possible. There's no cutoff of any funding or even a threat of it -- the only sure way Congress can force a policy change on the White House.

Still, the resolution engenders bitter debate and is fraught with political meaning, perhaps in ways we cannot see now, just as the Iraq war vote more than four years ago turned out to boomerang against Hillary Clinton and politicians booted out of office last November.

The Democrats pushing the resolution express the hope that a big vote for it -- and up to a dozen Republicans back it -- means Bush at last will realize that he must change his policy. But it appears that only facts on the ground in Iraq will ultimately sway Bush.

Foes of the resolution see its meaning as undermining the morale of our troops in Iraq and giving comfort and encouragement to our enemies. It's true that al-Qaida has made clear that the Islamist killers believe Americans have no stomach for a drawn-out guerrilla war. And no one would argue that the resolution is a cause for discouragement for al-Qaida.

Proponents say its most significant meaning is that the resolution reflects the will of the American people who have turned against the war.

House Democrats aren't the only ones offering toothless anti-Iraq resolutions. There have been a couple in the Senate denouncing the Bush surge, but they haven't gone anywhere. Republicans are pushing a 60-vote requirement for approval because Democrats won't permit a vote on a competing GOP resolution.

In addition, Sen. Barack Obama proposes a bill to start a "redeployment" of U.S. forces May 1 and have "all combat brigades" out by March 31 of next year but has no funding component to enforce its goals. The Constitution does not empower the Senate to direct troop movements.

Obama and other Democratic leaders oppose a funding cutoff because they think it comes across as not supporting the troops. Obama got into a bit of trouble the other day when he talked about the lives of U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq as being "wasted." The Democratic presidential candidate quickly backed away from that word, but one could be forgiven for suspecting that it expressed his true sentiment. After all, he famously referred to Iraq as "a dumb war." What's noble about dying for a dumb war?

And if young lives are being flushed away in a hopeless cause, a conflict already lost, wouldn't the right thing to do be to exercise leadership and take the tough measure of defunding the war?

One thing the House resolution appears to be aimed at is setting the stage for harsher measures to follow. The next anti-war maneuver apparently is to bypass the dicey defunding option by attaching to war-spending legislation amendments placing restrictions on the deployment of troops to Iraq. This plan, pushed by anti-war Rep. John Murtha, would establish some sort of combat-readiness standards for military units based on certain levels of manpower, equipment and training. Those seem the kinds of decisions normally left to military commanders. And while that measure probably can pass in the House, its prospects are rougher in the Senate.

The Web site Politico.com, which first reported this development, described Murtha's plan to reduce the number of units deemed combat ready and available for Iraq as "a slow-bleed strategy." Is that a phrase the Democrats want to carry to the American people, or the soldiers?

The Democrats say they want, as the House proposal puts it, "to support and protect" the troops. Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), the smart and affable majority leader in the House, declared Wednesday that "there is not a member of this body, not one, on either side of the aisle, who does not pray for our nation's success in Iraq."

The American people haven't heard much of that. The desire to support the troops doesn't seem to go so far as having the anti-surge resolutions include language along the lines of saying, for example, "whatever our reservations about the president's policies, we fervently hope and pray that the troops are successful in their mission."

One unintended outcome from their effort may be to leave the Democrats appearing to the American public as having a political stake in failure by the troops in Iraq. They can counter that Bush's strategy doomed the troops to failure from the start. Still, given the passions unleased by the war, and the emotions and recriminations that would accompany defeat, who can tell what judgments the public ultimately will make?