GOP support for Iraq fraying

Sen. Richard Lugar publicly broke rank with President Bush this week.

from the June 28, 2007 edition

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Washington - Support for President Bush's policy in Iraq is fraying within his own party, probably sooner than he expected.

Two key Republican senators have gone public this week with calls for a change of course in Iraq, including troop reductions, putting the Bush administration on the defensive and fueling questions over whether the president will have even until September to turn the war around.

When Mr. Bush launched the "surge" in US forces in Iraq earlier this year, aimed at bolstering security and allowing the Iraqis some breathing room for political and economic reforms and military training, he also won a Sept. 15 deadline to report progress.

Now, says Richard Lugar, the top Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, "the costs and risks of continuing down the current path outweigh the potential benefits that might be achieved." The Indiana senator made the unannounced speech late Monday night. The next day, another Republican committee member, Sen. George Voinovich of Ohio, also issued a call for reduced military engagement in Iraq and greater emphasis on diplomacy. The two men join four other Republican senators who have gone on the record calling for a new approach in Iraq.

But it is Senator Lugar's public break with the administration that is most significant. The six-term senator, whom White House spokesman Tony Snow referred to as "thoughtful" even as he rejected Lugar's ideas, commands respect from both parties for his studious approach to foreign policy.

"This is a major step," says Norman Ornstein, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. "[Lugar] wants to be sure we don't hit a wall up ahead. It's also a reflection of reality. A president can say and believe all he wants that politics won't matter, public opinion won't matter; he's going to do what he thinks is right."

But, Mr. Ornstein adds, Bush's experience mirrors that of President Johnson's when the public, and members of his own party in Congress, turned against the Vietnam War. The lesson is, "no matter how determined you are, there comes a point when you can't do what you want to do," he says. "And the key to this has been when Bush begins to lose Republicans."

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