Congress Needs to Give the President, not Just Iraq, A Deadline

When the leader of a CEO fails to solve a disaster he made, the board of directors needs to remove the failed CEO and find new leadership.

The 9-11 legislation shows the GOP Senators see that the President is not supportable in all cases. There are other reasons for the Republicans to put their party before the President, and ask him to resign.

This President has no plans to cooperate with Congress. Congress needs to give the President a deadline: Resign; or you will be impeached and removed from office.

Congress gave Saddam a deadline. Why isn't Congress willing to give this President a deadline?

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The Senate has a job to do: Find a new President; the House has a job to do: Start the process to make the Senate do its job. Until the House accepts that the President cannot be trusted to continue with any option, the President will continue doing what he's been doing -- ignoring Congress, spending money on illegal things, and hiding evidence of what Congress and the Constitution forbids.

This confrontation is one the President started when he violated the law, deceived Congress, and ignored the Constitution. Congress needs to accept the President started the Confrontation and remove him from office in 2007, not give him any discretion to play games until 2009.

The Congress is speaking as if Iraq has a deadline. A similar deadline should be applied to the President: Resign now.

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Comparisons with Germany Invalid

I've been thinking about Germany after WWII: The US didn't set a deadline, "Fix your mess, or we're leaving." Rather, the Allied forces rebuilt the country and stayed for a long time.

The comparison with Iraq is problematic: The US in Iraq, unlike in Germany during-after WWII, didn't start the final occupation and transition with a stable situation. Germany's factions had already been defeated by Hitler; and the US destroyed the most powerful German faction.

Today, the factions are fighting, there is no clear winner, and the US is at the wrong end of the liberation -- stuck.

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President's Disaster in Iraq Alone Is Reasonable Basis To Remove Him From Office

If anyone wants to talk about getting anyone else's attention, time for the Congress to give the President an attention getter: Resign, or you will be lawfully removed from office:

"We've got to focus the attention of the Iraqis on their responsibility for their own country," Levin told the Detroit Free Press. "The only way to tell them is that we're going to redeploy our forces in 4 to 6 months."Ref

A real way to have gotten the attention of the Iraqis was to have

A. Entered a lawful war;

B. Used overwhelming force;

C. Delivered on our promises to provide assistance.

We didn't do that. The President's approach in 2007 doesn't resolve any of the problems, only starts what is likely to be a long escalation. Like Vietnam, this isn't working.

The Iraqis have our attention: "Americans, you messed this up and have no solution."

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Civil War Foreseeable, Ignored -- Evidence of Maladministration, Incompetence

"Cut and running" doesn't begin to describe the problem. Bush knew going into this mess that a civil war was possible. That there "might be" a disaster on our hands is not a reason to keep doing what is not working. The President failed to plan for what was foreseeable.

The President no longer can claim that, if America loses, there might be a disaster -- that losses is ensured regardless what the US does; and the disaster has arrived.

As to claims that the citizens of the world "might" feel let down; or that, in the wake of the US losses, the Middle East will have instability, that is an absurd argument: The world has been let down; and the Middle East, because the US refuses to work on a solution with Iran and Syria, is experiencing instability. The issue is not a speculative problem of what may or may not happen in the future -- it's arrived.

The way forward is for Congress to accept the President has been enabled; and that the Congress can no longer enable the President: He must be removed from office.