Democratic win may lead to policy change on Iraq: paper

The Bush Administration may be under great pressure to fundamentally change its policy on the "increasingly unpopular" Iraq war, the Los Angeles Times said on Saturday.

"A Democratic victory in either chamber would give party lawmakers a national platform with which to prod the president, through public hearings and investigations into how the war has been conducted," said the paper.

The Nov. 7 midterm election is seen by many voters as a referendum on Iraq.

For Republicans, a significant Democratic advance would be proof that voters are fed up with the current course of the war and expect changes from the nation's leaders, the paper noted.

While Bush still will hold the lead role in foreign policy, a Democratic win would be a sign of an overpowering public sentiment "that Republicans here won't overlook," the paper quoted a senior GOP congressional staffer as saying.

"The White House will have to adjust to that reality too," said the unidentified aide.

"It will be a new day," said Marshall Wittmann, a former aide to Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) who is now with the moderate Democratic Leadership Council. "The real factor (President George W.Bush) has to fear is a collapse of support among Republicans, as well as Democrats."

The paper quoted Wittmann as saying that while Republican pressure on the president so far has been muted by party loyalty, a Democratic victory would be "a psychological blow" that would bring expressions of unhappiness from Republicans who don't want to be saddled with the war going into the 2008 election.

Sen. Carl Levin, ranking minority member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, told reporters recently that a Democratic victory in either chamber "would have a huge motivating force on the president to change course."

Levin added that "more and more Republicans would join with Democrats in trying to get the administration" to change direction.

However, lawmakers and experts don't expect Democratic victories to force a quick withdrawal of troops from Iraq - even though polling suggests that is what many Americans expect, according to the paper.

Although Bush and Republicans would strongly resist any withdrawal from Iraq, a New York Times-CBS poll released this week found 75 percent of respondents believed that U.S. troops would be taken out of Iraq more swiftly under a Democratic-led Congress.

The poll found 29 percent of Americans supported Bush's leadership of the war, matching the lowest point of his presidency.

Despite their harsh criticism of the Bush Administration for handling the Iraqi situation, Democrats remain deeply divided on the issue of a rapid pullout, the paper said.

Many Democrats, eager to avoid possible future charges that their party forced a "defeat" in the war, have ruled out any cutoff of funding of the kind that halted Vietnam War spending in the 1970s, said the paper.

Source: Xinhua