WSJ suggests Pelosi wants Iraq failure

In the latest attack on dissent, the Wall Street Journal editorial board suggests Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's "foreign policy intrusions" may be "consciously intended to cause a U.S. policy failure in Iraq":

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, famous for donning a head scarf earlier this year to commune for peace with the Syrians, has now concluded that this is the perfect moment to pass a Congressional resolution condemning Turkey for the Armenian genocide of 1915. Problem is, Turkey in 2007 has it within its power to damage the growing success of the U.S. effort in Iraq. We would like to assume this is not Speaker Pelosi's goal.

To be clear: We write that we would like to assume, rather than that we do assume, because we are no longer able to discern whether the Speaker's foreign-policy intrusions are merely misguided or are consciously intended to cause a U.S. policy failure in Iraq...

If Nancy Pelosi and Tom Lantos want to take down U.S. policy in Iraq to tag George Bush with the failure, they should have the courage to walk through the front door to do it. Bringing the genocide resolution to the House floor this week would put a terrible event of Armenia's past in the service of America's bitter partisanship today. It is mischievous at best, catastrophic at worst, and should be tabled.

Comments

[Peter]

My suspicions have been the same as the WSJ's. And I agree that if Democrats want to effect foreign policy change, they really ought to overcome their fear of nonreelection and just vote down Bush's defense spending bills if that's what it takes. But for many Members, apparently that's not a viable solution, and the only remaining way to end America's involvement in this horrible war is for congressional leadership to dangerously undercut this President's (note: not America's) misguided foreign policy, as currently by means of genocide resolution shenanigans.

So, due to our nation's dismal leadership, at this point it's down to a choice between the President's ongoing foreign policy disaster and Nancy Pelosi's own foreign policy blowup. But if one of those two has a chance of ending this war and curtailing America's ability to act in Iraq and elsewhere in the Middle East, that's the one I have to choose. Since all trust in our leadership has been eroded, the only thing we can now try to do to keep it from destroying our country is to limit its power. And cutting off the Turkey alliance does accomplish that.

And who knows? Maybe this whole episode will finally bring a direly needed reconsideration of Presidential power and accountability in the sphere of foreign policy. And that wouldn't be such a bad thing.