The Democrats in Congress confront a dilemma over funding for the Iraq War. If they fashion a final supplemental that, as the House did, makes future funding of the war conditional on the Iraqi government meeting certain goals, triggering withdrawal if they are not met, they risk a presidential veto. If, however, they do not tie funding to withdrawal, then they risk disappointing and alienating the 64 percent of Americans who support a timeline for withdrawal. There is a way out of this dilemma, a new way out of Iraq, which, without explicitly tying funding to withdrawal, would have the same effect: It would be the beginning of a process whose most likely result would be the withdrawal of all U.S. troops from Iraq by the end of 2008.
    This can be accomplished by adding one more "benchmark" to congressional legislation, as part of the conference report, or as an amendment offered to the bill that comes out of conference. That essential benchmark would encourage the Iraqi government to hold a referendum that would ask Iraqis whether they wanted the continued occupation of their country. With 71 percent of Iraqis polled supporting withdrawal within a year or less, and 91 percent supporting it within two years or less, the outcome would be certain. Such a vote, in other words, is the functional equivalent of a withdrawal timeline.
    The basic concept behind it was supported by 67 percent of Republicans in a little-noticed November 2006 poll by the Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA). And because it does not tie the president's or the military's hands in conducting the war, it would be hard for the president to veto, to reject legislation that encourages Iraqis to exercise their democratic rights when the Bush administration has supported democratizing the Middle East and justified the U.S. presence in Iraq on that basis. Even if such legislation is vetoed and the veto upheld, however, its passage by Congress might well encourage the Iraqis to hold such a vote on their own initiative. After all, last week, the majority of the Iraqi parliament, 144 out of 275 members, signed a petition calling for a withdrawal timeline.      

An antiwar coalition that includes MoveOn, VoteVets, unions, and other antiwar groups is building support for congressional withdrawal legislation. It is their capacity to mobilize grassroots groups in support of withdrawal that makes possible the following strategy. Just as the referendum in Iraq will mobilize the general populace, and not only the government and legislature, as a beginning step to withdrawal, so here the push for a referendum does not have to be confined to Congress. It can extend to other levels of government and to civil society, making a direct appeal to Congress and to the Iraqi parliament and people to let the people of Iraq vote on this matter.
This campaign would be especially useful in those Republican districts whose representative might support a withdrawal bill (remember that 67 percent of Republicans would support whatever the Iraqi people want with regard to continued occupation). This could be done before a congressional vote (if still applicable), if Congress fails to pass or the president to sign a withdrawal referendum approach, and especially after such an approach becomes law, up until shortly before the referendum is held in Iraq. An appeal from, among others, churches, synagogues, and mosques (most tellingly from Arab Americans), from city councils, state legislatures, teachers' organizations, women's groups, students, newspapers, and perhaps especially from veterans and veterans' organizations, active duty members of the armed forces, and the family members of soldiers who have served and are serving in Iraq, saying something roughly along these lines:

The crucial first step is for the 169 representatives who voted for the McGovern amendment and the 29 senators who voted for the Feingold-Reid amendment to form a bloc committed to voting against any bill for funding the Iraq War that does not include, in descending order of preference, either (1) a withdrawal timeline; or (2) its equivalent, such as a withdrawal referendum or benchmarks tied to withdrawal if not met; or (3) if the first two lack sufficient support in Congress or face a presidential veto, then pass a short-term, relatively clean bill for funding for 1-2 months, and during that time work to build support for a withdrawal referendum. Commit to a strategy to mobilize the majority that does support withdrawal, including the majority of Republicans that support honoring the desires of the Iraqi people and government, to create a veto-proof majority in Congress.
The McGovern and Reid-Feingold amendments showed that there is not yet enough support yet to cut off funding for the war, and even if there were, such a bill would be vetoed. The withdrawal referendum is the next best thing to a withdrawal timeline--and not the benchmarks being considered in current congressional legislation for supplemental funding. It would be preferable if the withdrawal referendum was the main, or only, benchmark. If the withdrawal referendum is one of several benchmarks, however, it has the advantages of having overwhelming public support, being easy to carry out, and thus is likely to be the first one met by the government. Politically, the withdrawal timeline can be supported by the antiwar wing of the Democratic Party, creating a bill that does not need as many Republican votes and thus does not need to be as watered down as it would otherwise have to be to get their support.
The congressional legislation vetoed by President Bush had roughly the same deadlines as would be likely as a result of the referendum. The withdrawal plan is likely to be agreed on sometime by November, and it could incorporate getting U.S. combat troops out of Iraq within six months, or around April 1, with the remainder removed over the following six months, or just before the 2008 elections. Congressional funding could be oriented around those goals. In other words, the Iraqi government and the U.S. Congress could roughly coordinate their planning, pushing each other to act.

A referendum strategy would show that Congress and the United States take into account the views of the Iraqis, in whose name and for whose protection we are fighting. It would also be a way to offer a constructive way out of the dilemmas facing Iraq from a country with a long tradition of elections and referendums and initiatives. We cannot do much constructive when 90 percent of the country wants us to leave in two years or less and 60 percent support attacks on your forces--attacks whose purpose is to force us to leave. A referendum will allow the Iraqis to nonviolently and freely take responsibility for their own country.
    Though it would be up to the Iraqi government to structure and hold such an election, here are a few thoughts on it. Like the questions asked in polls, it might be best to structure a referendum with a number of choices, to ask whether the voter wants to have occupation forces stay with no set time limit until the violence is substantially reduced and Iraqi forces are able to take over security duties, or whether all forces should be withdrawn within two years, within one year, within six months, or immediately. This would get to the specific choices of individual voters, and the results could be aggregated, with the median choice the preferred one for the Iraqi government to request and to pursue in negotiations with the United States and the other coalition countries.
According to a September 2006 PIPA poll, the median withdrawal timeline supported by Iraqis is approximately a year: 34 percent want us to leave within six months; 37 percent, one year; 20 percent, two years; and 9 percent until the security situation is better.

The Democrats in Congress confront a dilemma over funding for the Iraq War. If they fashion a final supplemental that, as the House did, makes future funding of the war conditional on meeting certain goals, triggering withdrawal if they are not met, they risk a presidential veto. If, however, they do not tie funding to withdrawal, then they risk disappointing and alienating the 64 percent of Americans who support a timeline for withdrawal. There is a way out of this dilemma, a new way out of Iraq, which, without explicitly tying funding to withdrawal, would have the same effect: It would be the beginning of a process whose most likely result would be the withdrawal of all U.S. troops from Iraq by the end of 2008.
    This can be accomplished by adding one more "benchmark" to congressional legislation, as part of the conference report, or as an amendment offered to the bill that comes out of conference. That essential benchmark would encourage the Iraqi government to hold a referendum that would ask Iraqis whether they wanted the continued occupation of their country. With 71 percent of Iraqis polled supporting withdrawal within a year or less, and 91 percent supporting it within two years or less, the outcome would be certain. Such a vote, in other words, is the functional equivalent of a withdrawal timeline.
    The basic concept behind it was supported by 67 percent of Republicans in a little-noticed poll (November 2006 poll by the Program on International Policy Attitudes, or PIPA). And because it does not tie the president's or the military's hands in conducting the war, it would be hard for the president to veto, to reject legislation that encourages Iraqis to exercise their democratic rights when the Bush administration has supported democratizing the Middle East and justified the U.S. presence in Iraq on that basis. Even if such legislation is vetoed and the veto upheld, however, its passage by Congress might well encourage the Iraqis to hold such a vote on their own initiative. After all, last week, the majority of the Iraqi parliament, 144 out of 275 members, signed a petition calling for a withdrawal timeline.