This week has marked act two in the ongoing Bush/Congress/Democrat skirmish on Iraq funding. As I mentioned in my last post, the Democrats had come up with a compromise. They’d let Mr Bush have his money, provided he set targets for the Iraqi government to meet regarding security and political stability.
ON MAY 22nd the Democrats dropped their centrepiece of their Iraq policy – the setting of a timetable for withdrawing American troops from Iraq. This was a concession to legislative reality: they only have the slimmest of majorities in the Senate, and Joe Lieberman regularly votes with the president on matters Iraqi.
- The Economist
It seems that the president’s position isn’t so weak after all. He gets his $100 billion to fund his ‘surge’, without making many concessions at all. Mr Bush basically told the Democrats that he’d veto any other attempts to force a timetable for withdrawal, saying that “it doesn’t make sense to tell the enemy your plans”.
The Democrats could either starve the troops of funding, which had much wider implications and would probably have caused major backlash, or stop pushing for a timetable. The president is still shown to be a formidable figure, even after polls show an unpopular president in an unpopular war.
Also this week, Iran has ignored yet another UN resolution.
To ignore one unanimous United Nations Security Council resolution may be considered impudence; to defy a second looks like policy.
Iran is enriching uranium at an ever increasing, and ever alarming rate. Even now, the six countries leading the diplomacy at the UN – the council’s five permanent members (America, Britain, China, France and Russia) plus Germany – are starting work on a third resolution. Iran, however, looks set to ignore this one as well.
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