MADELEINE BRAND, host:
NPR's senior Washington editor Ron Elving is here now, as he is every Monday, to talk politics.
And, Ron, let's talk about these three options - go big, go long, go home - and how they might play on Capitol Hill. Democrats now have a bigger voice in this debate, so what option do they like?
RON ELVING: There's not much to like in any of these options when you stop and think about it. None of them has much appeal, either politically or militarily or in terms of helping people in Iraq. It all just sounds like different means of trying to purchase a ticket home in different degrees and at different speeds. You hear people talk about cut and run, I think maybe what we seem to be talking about here is cut and walk.
But, you know, the Democrats now have more than just a seat at the table. They now have some degree of shared responsibility. They have taken over part of the government; they will officially do so in January. And they're going to have to make the kind of tough decisions that a governing party makes, not just the kind of critical remarks and statements that an out of party - out of power party makes.
BRAND: And let's talk about one idea and I'm wondering if this is just grandstanding, or if it's a really an idea that could gain some sort of traction. This is by New York Democrat Charlie Rangel, and he says he'll introduce legislation next year reinstating the draft.
ELVING: It is a form of grandstanding, I believe, because surely Congressman Rangel knows that 70 percent of the people in the country in all polls do not want a draft. And surely he knows that it is unpopular among his own Democrats; speaker-to-be Nancy Pelosi has already said that's not going to be on the agenda. No one thinks it's going to happen. But the reason that he brings it up is because that's what we would apparently need, if we were going to pursue the foreign policy that we seem to be pursuing. If we want to have the troops, we would need to go big, or at least to go big enough, in the Pentagon's terminology. Then we would need to have a lot more troops than we have today.
Even to go big for a little while or a little bigger - 20,000, 30,000 - we don't really have the capability of doing that, according to the testimony we got from General Abizaid last week. So if we're going to have the kind of foreign policy this administration has been pursuing, or wants to talk about in Iran or North Korea, we're going to have to have a bigger army. And Congressman Rangel is simply saying the only way to do that is have a draft.
BRAND: Well, we've heard a lot of various proposals about what to do about Iraq with troops and otherwise. Are the Democrats working behind the scenes to come up with a unified policy?
ELVING: In a sense they are, although, up until now they really haven't had a mechanism to make policy. But in January, as they take the reins in the House and the Senate, they're going to have to have something to put forward. So, yes, they're talking about it. There are many voice and we're either going to have many voices singing in harmony, which is a possibility. Or we will have the also great probability of a lot of voices tracking over each other, a certain amount of cacophony.
And the Republicans are going to feel as though they've already paid their price for what's happened in Iraq. And they're probably going to sit back to some degree and look at the Democrats and say, now it's your turn, let's see what you can come up with. Surely the administration is still in charge of policy, but now the Democrats are going to be charge of Congress and they're going to have to take some responsibility for what happens in Iraq.
BRAND: NPR's senior Washington editor Ron Elving, thank you, Ron.
ELVING: Thank you, Madeleine.
BRAND: And you can read Ron's column, Watching Washington, at npr.org.
Stay with us on DAY TO DAY from NPR News. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
