{"id":314,"date":"2007-07-12T14:36:59","date_gmt":"2007-07-12T18:36:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/?p=314"},"modified":"2007-07-12T20:49:26","modified_gmt":"2007-07-13T00:49:26","slug":"is-that-a-lugar-in-your-pocket","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/?p=314","title":{"rendered":"Is That a Lugar in Your Pocket?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><meta http-equiv=\"Content-Language\" content=\"en-us\" \/> <meta http-equiv=\"Content-Type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=windows-1252\" \/><title>Are Republicans in the US Senate<\/title>Are Republicans in the US Senate going to force the Bush administration to  &#8220;change course&#8221; in Iraq?<\/p>\n<p>Maybe.<\/p>\n<p>But as I suggested <a href=\"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/?p=312\">in a  recent post<\/a>, the change of course is going to be primarily political, not  military.\u00c2\u00a0 It will not mean US withdrawal from Iraq.<\/p>\n<p>If Senator Richard Lugar and Company have any influence at all, it will be to  press the Bush administration to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.time.com\/time\/world\/article\/0,8599,1641541,00.html\">dump the  present Shiite-led government of the &#8220;young democracy&#8221; of Iraq<\/a> in exchange  for a coup under the auspices of an ex-Baathist, Sunni Arab &#8220;national salvation&#8221;  government&#8211;aka &#8220;Saddamism without Saddam.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The &#8220;failures&#8221; of the Maliki government, rather than the failures of the  military &#8220;surge,&#8221; are the primary targets of Lugar&#8217;s attacks.<\/p>\n<p>It is not difficult to image that it was the future of the <em>Iraqi  government <\/em>not the future of the surge that topped the agenda when <a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/wp-dyn\/content\/article\/2007\/07\/08\/AR2007070800923.html\"> Lugar met for negotiations with National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Did Lugar get some commitments from Hadley that the White House would dump  Maliki?<\/p>\n<p>Unclear.<\/p>\n<p>But it is worth noting that <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sfgate.com\/cgi-bin\/article.cgi?file=\/chronicle\/archive\/2007\/07\/12\/MNGHSQUTPD1.DTL&#038;type=politics\"> Lugar refused<\/a> to support Senate defense appropriation amendments that press  for US withdrawal.<\/p>\n<p>At the same time, the <a href=\"http:\/\/online.wsj.com\/article\/SB118420013542264040.html?mod=googlenews_wsj\"> <em>Wall Street Journal<\/em> reports<\/a> that Senator Lugar will join Senator John  Warner in offering an amendment of their own to the defense spending bill.<\/p>\n<p>If <a href=\"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/?p=312\">Lugar&#8217;s big speech  of June 25<\/a> is any guide, a Lugar-Warner amendment will be heavy on rhetoric  about the urgency of a &#8220;change of course&#8221; in Iraq, <em>very light<\/em> on troop  withdrawal and very strident in its demand for a <em>political change<\/em> in  Iraq.<\/p>\n<p>If Lugar gets his way, Bush is going to have to abandon his talk about  supporting the &#8220;young democracy&#8221; of Iraq.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Are Republicans in the US SenateAre Republicans in the US Senate going to force the Bush administration to &#8220;change course&#8221; in Iraq? Maybe. But as I suggested in a recent post, the change of course is going to be primarily political, not military.\u00c2\u00a0 It will not mean US withdrawal from Iraq. If Senator Richard Lugar [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3,10],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=314"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=314"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=314"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=314"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}