On the recordMarch 22, 2007
I hope the Democrats under Speaker Nancy Pelosi keep pushing to set a deadline for withdrawal from Iraq because they are providing two patriotic services that the Republicans failed to offer in the previous 4 years. The first is policy discipline. The other useful function Speaker Pelosi and her colleagues are performing is to give the President and General David Petraeus, our Commander in Iraq, the leverage of a deadline without a formal deadline. How so? The surge cannot work without political reconciliation among Iraqi factions, which means Sunni-Shiite negotiations, and such negotiations are unlikely to work without America having the leverage of telling the parties that if they do not compromise, we will leave. Deadlines matter. At some point Iraqis have to figure this out themselves. Since Mr. Bush refuses to set a deadline, Speaker Pelosi is the next best thing.
Source
govinfo.gov
