War Scrambles Usual Battle Lines in Congress

Come to Congress these days for debate on the Kosovo war, and you’ll need a field guide to tell the hawks from the doves.

The conflict in the Balkans has so scrambled party lines in the United States that some of the strongest advocates of NATO’s military intervention have been liberal Democrats, a traditionally gunshy crew. And some of the harshest critics of the air war are conservatives who usually love to flex military muscle.

Listen to Rep. David E. Bonior (D-Mich.), a certifiable peacenik during the 1991 Persian Gulf War: “We need to move . . . the Serbian troops out of Kosovo and . . . if it takes more than air power, so be it. Including ground troops.”

Now listen to Sen. Don Nickles (R-Okla.), card-carrying member of the pro-Pentagon crowd: “I have serious, serious reservations about getting involved in a civil war” in Kosovo.

The Bonior/Nickles role reversal is a reflection of just how muddled foreign policy allegiances have become in Congress since the end of the Cold War--especially in a region such as the Balkans, where there are few ideological lodestars to guide when and how the United States should intervene.

“Things changed after the Soviet Union disappeared,” said John Isaacs, president of the Council for a Liveable World, an arms-control advocacy group. “The kind of interventions you have now--in Bosnia, Somalia, Kosovo--are no longer seen in the context of Cold War politics.”

Some of this shift reflects Democrats’ desire to submerge any doubts they may have about the Kosovo war and back a president of their own party, a motivation they did not have when George Bush or other Republicans were commander-in-chief. But a key question is whether Democrats’ usual aversion to the use of force will resurface--and their support for President Clinton will falter--if he requests the deployment of U.S. ground troops.

“They are not comfortable at all,” Rep. James P. Moran (D-Va.) said of his colleagues’ view of the situation in the Balkans. “But they are inclined to support the president.”

Although both sides are now generally rallying around Clinton, the imbalance between the parties was clear when the Senate voted last month to authorize the air campaign against Yugoslavia: Only two Democrats opposed it, while 38 Republicans voted against the resolution.

Earlier, when the House voted to authorize U.S. troops as part of NATO peacekeeping efforts, 173 Republicans voted against the deployment while 44 were for it; among Democrats, the tally was 174-18 in favor.

Some traditionally hawkish Republicans are unenthusiastic about military action in the Balkans because they don’t trust Clinton and his team to run it.

“I have no confidence in the ability of liberals to wage war,” said Rep. Joseph R. Pitts (R-Pa.). “They do not understand the first thing about using American military force, about protecting national interests, or about what is required to defeat a determined enemy.”

Others express reservations about the mission itself, saying immediate national security interests are not at stake as clearly as they were in Iraq, when U.S. oil supplies were threatened. Instead, they see the Balkan conflict as the latest eruption of age-old civil strife that the United States is ill-equipped to resolve.

To some degree, the ongoing congressional debate has plumbed basic post-Cold War questions about what military role this country should play in the world.

“Conservatives have viewed the military’s primary utility as for national defense and national security,” said Sen. Tim Hutchinson (R-Ark.), who voted against authorizing the air campaign. “Liberals today have adopted . . . a broader view of what the purpose of military action can be: for humanitarian causes, nation-building, clearly areas where there was not a strict threat to the United States.”

Indeed, for dovish liberals such as Bonior--a onetime Catholic seminarian--U.S. military action in Kosovo is compelling precisely because of the humanitarian aims of the mission: to prevent mass killings by a brutal political leader.

“The horrific human rights abuses are on a scale I haven’t see in my tenure in Congress,” said Bonior, a 22-year House veteran.

Bonior voted against military intervention in Iraq in 1991 because he did not think that diplomatic options had been exhausted.

Even Sen. Paul Wellstone (D-Minn.), one of Congress’ most liberal members and a leading foe of U.S. action in the Persian Gulf, voted for the airstrikes against Serbia.

“I am not a senator who supports military action lightly,” he said during debate on the resolution. “But I believe we must act now to forestall a larger humanitarian crisis.”

But it’s not clear how durable liberal Democratic support for Clinton’s policy will be if the conflict drags on and costs pile up.

Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) says he supports the air campaign but is skeptical of the Pentagon’s demands for more money. “What did they do with the $270 billion we already gave them?” he asked.

Bonior said he believed most--but not all--congressional Democrats would stick with the mission if ground troops are deployed.

Wellstone, for one, already shows signs of wavering. Just a few days after voting to support airstrikes, he complained about signs of “mission creep” in Clinton’s war aims. Then he cringed at reports of civilian casualties when U.S. and NATO forces bombed sites in downtown Belgrade. And if ground troops are called in, Wellstone will be lost.

“I don’t see conditions under which I would support the use of ground troops at all,” he said.