Stevenson’s army, January 13, 2nd edition

– NYT has long article on Joe Biden’s 2002 vote for war in Iraq. It’s not wrong, but it overlooks some important contextual facts. In class I told the story of how the bipartisan Senate leadership in 2001 rejected the White House proposed language for an AUMF because it seemed like a blank check for a war on terror.Instead, the Senate passed a bill limited to those connected to the 9/11 attacks, and then adjourned. The House felt sandbagged, forced to accept the Senate language in order to avoid a long delay. A year later, seeking the AUMF for war in Iraq, the WH cut a deal with the House Democratic leader to act before the Senate, thus preventing Senators Biden and Lugar from winning support for their conditional AUMF.  In voting for the Iraq war, ambitious politicians like Biden, Kerry, & Hilary Clinton also remembered the purgatory 47 Senate Democrats faced in 1992 after voting against the 1991 Gulf War. They chose toughness over caution.
-Jim Steinberg, who was a senior official during many of the decisions he recounts in a new article, looks at US-China policy since 1989.
– WaPo says Trump has talked of killing Suleimani since the early weeks of his administration. NBC says Trump gave conditional authorization for the killing last summer.

My SAIS colleague Charlie Stevenson distributes this almost daily news digest of foreign/defense/national security policy to “Stevenson’s army” via Googlegroups. I plan to republish here. If you want to get it directly, To get Stevenson’s army by email, send a blank email (no subject or text in the body) to stevensons-army+subscribe@googlegroups.com. You’ll get an email confirming your join request. Click “Join This Group” and follow the instructions to join. Once you have joined, you can adjust your email delivery preferences (if you want every email or a digest of the emails).