Grasping at straws.

Byline: The Register-Guard

Candid and vigorous congressional debate is required on many strategic questions concerning how best to extricate U.S. forces from the debacle President Bush created by invading Iraq.

But there are some elements surfacing in the heated Senate debate over a resolution dealing with Bush's troop surge plan that are plainly preposterous. One is the argument, made by Republican Sens. Mitch McConnell, John McCain, Lindsey Graham and others, that a nonbinding resolution opposing Bush's plan to send 21,500 more U.S. troops into the center of Iraq's civil war would undermine the morale and mission of the soldiers we've sent into harm's way.

For this argument to make an iota of sense, the 140,000 military personnel in Iraq right now would somehow have to believe that by and large, the American people and the Congress support the Iraq war. That means these U.S. troops - many of whom have come home from combat tours in Iraq only to be sent back for a second or third time - would have to have no knowledge of the results of the November election in their homeland, or why the war-supporting Republicans were thrown out of office. These same troops would have to be completely ignorant of poll after poll showing widespread public disapproval of the Iraq war, even among families that have loved ones serving in Iraq.

Furthermore, these brave Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine personnel would themselves have to believe in the wisdom of the strategy they've been ordered to execute. But a December poll by the Military Times publications revealed that barely one in three service members approve of the way the president is handling the war, and only 41 percent now feel it was the right idea to go to war in Iraq in the first place. The number who feel success there is likely has shrunk from 83 percent in 2004 to about 50 percent today. More than one in 10 soldiers (13 percent) say there should be no U.S. troops in Iraq at all.

McCain, who has apparently decided to stake his presidential hopes on having the sharpest talons of any Republican war hawk, openly taunts his Senate colleagues who oppose Bush's troop escalation, accusing them of "intellectual dishonesty."

"I do believe that if you really believe that this is doomed to failure and is going to cost American lives, then you should do what's necessary to prevent it from happening rather than a vote of 'disapproval,' '' he said.

This is the all-or-nothing gambit, and it represents a cleverly packaged false choice. McCain, with the White House cheering him on, is hoping he can make the public believe that a nonbinding resolution declaring no confidence in Bush's disastrous Iraq policy is the cowardly alternative.

That's not much different from arguing that it's intellectually dishonest to negotiate with a belligerent and uncooperative North Korea over nuclear disarmament. According to this logic, if the United States really believes North Korea - or Iran - represent threats to national security, then those threats should be neutralized militarily without delay.

Obviously, it's absurd to prematurely abandon diplomacy for a last-resort option, just as it's absurd to suggest that the Senate shouldn't try to persuade the White House that Congress is serious about an alternative course in Iraq before taking more serious steps to cut off funding.

There's nothing about a nonbinding resolution that prevents the Senate from invoking the power of the purse later on if the Bush administration refuses to compromise.