t he p erils of o ptimism 321impose a deadline for withdrawing American troops from Iraq.
Despite their majority status in both chambers, Democrats could not
translate the antiwar sentiment that helped bring them to power into
concrete measures to end American involvement. They tried
repeatedly during their fi rst months as a majority to force an end to
the war through legislative action. Each attempt failed, either by
falling short of suffi cient votes in the Senate, by a Republican fi li-
buster in the Senate, or by a presidential veto that Democrats lacked
suffi cient votes to override. Even when measures did not require an
extraordinary majority, as with the supplemental spending bills used
to keep the war off -budget, Democrats could not muster the votes to
block passage. As was the case during the Vietnam War, lawmakers
simply would not refuse funding for American troops in combat.
Congress passed a measure that required the administration to report
on eighteen benchmarks of progress in Iraq, but the legislation did
not tie war funding or aid to Iraq on meeting the standards. Th e
situation frustrated antiwar activists outside Congress, who railed
against legislative timidity. But for lawmakers, it suffi ced to cast sym-
bolic votes against the president’s policy without being shackled with
the political responsibility for the outcome of the war that would have
accompanied a successful measure to set a fixed withdrawal
timetable.
Had lawmakers engaged in serious oversight of the war, they might
have uncovered one of the more signifi cant changes that occurred under
Petraeus. Th e core national objective that Bush had framed in going to
war in Iraq was quietly shelved. No longer did American military com-
manders and civilian offi cials in Iraq expect to establish a pluralist,
liberal democracy within the foreseeable future. Petraeus and company
defi ned success down. At best, the United States might leave behind a
stable government with some representation for the three main ethno-
sectarian groups and a level of violence not so extreme as to disrupt the
precarious political order. As for transforming the Middle East, the
Iraqi solution would hold little appeal, especially given the enormous
price Iraqis had paid. Yet no one in the American leadership in Iraq ever
explicitly declared the original goal unachievable. The president
continued to express his vision of an Iraq that would become a beacon
of hope across the region.