[Peace] For DC “Progressives,” Ending and Preventing Wars Is Not a Litmus Test for Speaker

[Robert Naiman]

For DC “Progressives,” Ending and Preventing Wars Is Not a Litmus Test for
Speaker

Here is a key fact about Pelosi’s power to dominate “progressives” in DC on
the question of ending and preventing wars: if you ask “progressives” in DC
why there has never been a “progressive” challenge to Pelosi for Speaker,
the standard answer is: because all the plausible alternatives would be
worse, would be “less progressive” than Pelosi. If you drill into this
calculation, you realize that ending and preventing wars plays no role in
it, because the people who have been making this calculation on behalf of
“progressives” in DC until now don’t really care that much about ending and
preventing wars.

When I say that they don’t really care that much about ending and
preventing wars, I am not saying that their caring about ending and
preventing wars is exactly equal to zero. I am saying that they don’t care
about ending and preventing wars very much. They’re in favor of ending and
preventing wars if it doesn’t cost them anything personally, if it’s free.
Not if they would have to sacrifice anything else for it, not if any kind
of trade-off is involved where they would have to prioritize that over
anything else whatsoever.

This is a key distinction, because a key part of how Washington functions
involves putting people in situations where they have to make such
trade-offs, where they have to prioritize, where they have to think about
which priorities they can save. If there’s never anybody in the meeting
room for whom ending and preventing wars is a priority, then that’s never
going to emerge from the meeting as a priority. This is why we didn’t end
the Yemen war on the Pentagon authorization bill last year. In the endgame,
there was nobody in the room for whom ending the Yemen war was a priority.

Look at the race to succeed Eliot Engel as chair of the House Foreign
Affairs Committee. There are three candidates: Brad Sherman, Greg Meeks,
and Joaquin Castro. If you ask DC progressives who focus on ending and
preventing wars what their minimum demand is, they will all come easily to
agreement: “No to Brad Sherman.” Brad Sherman voted for the Iraq war, but
more crucially, Brad Sherman voted against Obama’s Iran nuclear deal, which
most Democrats who focus on ending and preventing wars see as Obama’s
signature foreign policy diplomatic achievement to prevent war. Brad
Sherman voted against Obama’s Iran deal because Brad Sherman is close to
AIPAC. AIPAC opposed Obama’s Iran deal because Netanyahu opposed Obama’s
Iran deal, and the position of AIPAC on such questions is whatever the
position of Netanyahu is. Most Democrats who focus on ending and preventing
wars don’t think someone like that should be chair of the House Foreign
Affairs Committee in a “Democratic-controlled House,” the top House
Democratic spox on Foreign Policy. That’s why many of them didn’t think
Eliot Engel should be chair of HFAC. He’s close to AIPAC, he voted for the
Iraq war, he voted against the Iran deal. Just like Brad Sherman. That’s
why these folks see Brad Sherman as “Engel Two.”

So of the three candidates for chair of the House Foreign Affairs
Committee, Brad Sherman is the only one who voted against Obama’s Iran
deal, and that’s why all the DC progressives who focus on ending and
preventing wars agree on opposing Brad Sherman for chair of the House
Foreign Affairs Committee. But Brad Sherman is unique among the three
candidates in another interesting way: he’s the only one of the three
candidates who is a member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. So the
one thing that all DC progressives who focus on ending and preventing wars
agree on is no to the one candidate who is a member of the Congressional
Progressive Caucus.

And what that tells us is that the “progressive” in “Congressional
Progressive Caucus” as it exists today has nothing to do with ending and
preventing wars. You can be a member of the Congressional Progressive
Caucus in good standing and not be as “progressive” on ending and
preventing wars as Barack Obama and Joe Biden and John Kerry and Wendy
Sherman.
So of course, if the Congressional Progressive Caucus has any say in
whether there is a progressive challenge to Pelosi for Speaker, ending and
preventing wars is not going to enter into the calculation. Why should it?
The Congressional Progressive Caucus as it exists today has nothing to do
with ending and preventing wars.

Now consider this: the chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee is the
top Democratic spox on foreign policy in a “Democratic-controlled House.”
But the chair of HFAC is not the top Democratic decision-maker on foreign
policy in a “Democratic-controlled House.” The top decision-maker is the
Speaker. The top decision-maker is Pelosi.

When we couldn’t get a floor vote on Cicilline’s bill to prevent the U.S.
invasion of Venezuela that John Bolton was trying to engineer, Cicilline’s
office begged me not to go after Engel. It’s not Engel’s fault, they said.
Engel is being as helpful as he can. The obstacle is not Engel. The
obstacle is Pelosi.

Pelosi is wielding power over foreign policy without accountability to
Democrats who care about ending and preventing wars. We must change this
dynamic if we want to end and prevent wars. That’s why Democrats who care
about ending and preventing wars must demand that there be a progressive
challenge to Pelosi as Speaker.
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