It looks like the Iraq supplemental will pass the Senate with strings attached, laying the groundwork for a furious spinning battle once Bush vetoes the supplemental. It’s interesting that as best I can tell both parties think the veto battle will help them. Brian Beutler helps explain what happens legislatively after a veto.

Let me just say that while I think the legislative tactics in play here are clearly very important to the future of the country, political gamesmanship of this kind isn’t something I feel I can make especially enlightened judgments about so I may write less about this question than its objective importance in some sense merits.

UPDATE: Santamonicamr notes in comments that this appears to have been the long-awaited moment when Chuck Hagel stops complaining and actually does something — breaking with the GOP and voting the right way on the amendment.

Perhaps the strangest element of the Iran debate has been the tendency for it to prompt people to call for war without quite calling for war. We can see, for example, The New Republic‘s successive exhortations for the United States to “move ruthlessly” against Iran and “get ruthlessly serious” about Iran back in July 2006. Now, National Review is editorializing that “Israel was placed in this dilemma last summer, when Iranian agents — the Hezbollah of Lebanon — crossed the border, killed some soldiers, and took two others hostage. Israel treated this aggression as a declaration of war, and its repeat in the Gulf waters has to be met with the same firmness.”

As Andrew Sullivan remarks that appears to be a recommendation that we go to war with Iran, but somehow the editorialists can’t quite bring themselves to write the words. But Israel, you know, bombed and invaded Lebanon in response to the events in question. It seems to me that if National Review wants us to bomb and invade Iran, they should say so. It’s not a small question.

In today’s TAP Online column I praise Condoleezza Rice for her late-breaking realization that working toward an Israel-Palestine peace agreement would be a good thing. Meanwhile, The New York Sun reports that “Israeli officials have spoken to a top White House official in recent days, using friendly Washington contacts to go ‘over Condi’s head’ to describe several of her new ideas as unrealistic, a Jerusalem source, who declined to be identified, told The New York Sun.”

Stanley Kurtz unleashes a very serious, thoughtful, argument that has never been made in such detail or with such care: “Iran no doubt remembers how it sent the hostages home at the start of Ronald Reagan’s new presidency. It greatly feared Reagan’s combination of toughness and fresh political capital. That’s part of why Iran is racing so hard right now to get the bomb.” Alternatively, Iran released the hostages in exchange for a series of concessions by the United States, including a relaxation of sanctions, the unfreezing of financial assets, an America pledge of non-interference in Iranian affairs, etc.

I’d thought that Ronald Reagan freed the hostages through an illegal arms for hostages swap, but that was actually a different batch of hostages. In fact, the original hostages were freed in exchange for concessions through Algeria-sponsored negotiations conducted by Warren Christopher on behalf of Jimmy Carter’s outgoing administration.

If George W. Bush vetos the Iraq supplemental the Democrats passed, isn’t that him cutting off funding for the troops in the field? I mean, here’s congress, appropriating some funds for the troops, and instead of letting the troops get the funds Bush is saying, no, he’ll hold their well-being hostage to advance his own perogatives and ego.

This article by Patrick Healy nicely demonstrates the political dynamics that make Hillary Clinton so unappealing to me. She has such a strong and not-especially-deserved reputation for liberalism, that her primary political task must always be trying to run away from progressive politics in order to broaden her appeal rather than using her personal qualities to broaden the appeal of progressive politics. It’s also, however, an infuriating example of journalism that simply equates the concepts of support for the military, knowledge of military affairs, and right-wing positions about the use of force.

There’s no indication, however, that the war clowns at the Victory Caucus have any actual knowledge whereof they speak. Nor is it “anti-military” to suggest it’s not a good idea to stick the United States Army with the task of performing an impossible job in Iraq.