Gen. David Petraeus (WDCpix)

During their recent congressional testimony, Gen. David Petraeus and Amb. Ryan Crocker refused to be pinned own on the goals, mission or even the meaning of success for U.S. forces in Iraq. But when Crocker talked abut the proposed “Status-of-Forces Agreement” he was clear. He promised that Congress would be “fully informed,” but, he said, there would be no “treaty” submitted for the Senate’s advice and consent. Crocker went unchallenged.

The details of the proposed agreement are apparently still pending. But, last November, Gen. Douglas Lute, the White House “czar” for Iraq, discussed the administration’s intention to reach an agreement that would protect Iraq against internal and external threats, defend the Iraqi constitution, deter foreign aggression and support efforts to combat all terrorist groups. Lute stated that Iraqi national leaders wanted a long-term relationship with Washington as “a reliable, enduring partner.”

Illustration by: Matt Mahurin

Legal scholars have testified that no known (they might be classified) status of forces agreements, or SOFA, contain provisions for combat commitments unless approved by Congress. Sen. Joseph Biden (D-Del.), chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, has pointed “over 200 years of practice” demonstrating that Congress has implemented such agreements. But, so far, this has been to little avail; the Bush administration remains determined to prevent any congressional meddling.

Voltaire had it right: history is nothing but a pack of tricks that we play on the dead. For much of the 20th century, Republicans railed against executive agreements like “Status-of-Forces Agreements” — understandings between heads-of-state. But today’s Republicans support the president in his effort to conclude an agreement to commit untold numbers of U.S. troops to Iraq for untold numbers of years.

Executive power expanded enormously during World War II. After the war, old guard Republicans, still rooted in isolationism, proposed a constitutional amendment to give Congress authority to regulate all executive agreements with foreign powers. Introduced in the early 1950s by Sen. John W. Bricker (R-Ohio), it reflected Republican concerns that first President Franklin D. Roosevelt at Yalta and then President Harry S. Truman at Potsdam had bargained away too much.

The GOP also objected to Truman’s sending troops to Korea in 1950 without congressional approval. It was probably opposition by the president, Dwight D. Eisenhower, and his enormous influence within Congress and without, that tipped the balance against the measure. It failed by only one vote.

Yet most of today’s conservatives uncritically advocate the most luxuriant interpretation of executive power, with no regard for concurrent institutional powers. In fact, only some Democrats are demanding a congressional role for what they believe are treaty arrangements — as the Constitution dictates.

But President George W. Bush clearly wants no part of congressional participation. At the same time, our new “democratic” Republic of Iraq has the right to accept or reject such an agreement. Bush undoubtedly views his proposed “strategic agreement” with Iraq as table stakes in the effort to insure his legacy.

In November 2007, the president and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki issued a Declaration of Principles for a “Long-Term Relationship of Cooperation and Friendship.” Since then, the Bush administration has pursued a “strategic agreement,” including both a SOFA and agreements on other political, economic, and cultural arrangements.

The White House has tried to isolate its opponents. Press Secretary Dana Perino reiterated that the Iraqis and their neighbors want this agreement –- meaning they view it as essential for preserving order in the area. “[T]he only ones who are agitated about it,” she noted, “and in fact demagoguing about it, are a subset of Democrats.” Crude perhaps, but she may have a point.

Bush’s proposed agreement is essential for his vision of a Middle East that is “democratic” and “stable.” It insures U.S. protection for “democratic” allies like Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Qatar against Shiite Iran. The administration seems to have chosen sides in the larger Islamic civil war.

In doing so, the administration may have made a prophet of former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, who said last September that “the Iraq war is largely about oil” and essential for the global economy.

Bush is probably betting that the rest of the world, from Europe to Asia, will quietly accept U.S. troops to defend their economic interests. Why not — they are free. And domestic interests could be placated because the commitment can be regarded as one big earmark for expanded defense spending, insuring congressional support in many districts.

Whatever SOFA emerges, we can be certain that it will not provide for any significant withdrawal of U.S. troops. Petraeus and Crocker are not there to preside over such a happening.

Future presidents are not obligated to continue this commitment. But it could well fasten itself on Washington for some time to come.

Consider Eisenhower’s 1958 letter to South Vietnam, promising the Diem regime aid to sustain its “democracy.” That momentary statement hardened into a “commitment” that hobbled the next four U.S. presidents, and brought about more than 50,000 U.S. battle deaths and inestimable Vietnamese losses.

So when you think Petraeus and Crocker, should we overlay images of Gen. William Westmoreland and Amb. Graham Martin in the 1960s?

Congress, of course, has always had the power to enforce executive agreements -– the power of the purse. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY), with Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) as a co-sponsor, has introduced legislation to deny funds for any agreement unauthorized by Congress. Alas, this can only be a gesture, given the current political alignment. A lethal combination of legislative acquiescence and inertia, not legislative responsibility, is the nation’s sad lot.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt (Library of Congress)

Seventy-five years ago, Mar. 4, 1933, with the Great Depression deepening, Franklin D. Roosevelt’s inauguration heralded the most productive, dynamic domestic reform program since the Civil War. It would be reform within a democratic framework. At that time, fascism, communism and militarism appeared as energetic waves of the future, triumphant and energetic compared to democratic states that languished in economic decline.

Despite his detractors, then and now, Roosevelt energized popular government — and American democracy emerged stronger with his presidency. New Deal programs, combining relief, recovery and reform, and, ultimately aided by World War II and the Cold War, revitalized capitalism, launching an era of unprecedented prosperity. FDR’s Inaugural Address opened on an auspicious note: “We have nothing to fear but fear itself.”

Illustration by: Matt Mahurin

Roosevelt readily captured the new medium of radio, offering a voice of boundless optimism and hope; while his 1932 opponent, Herbert Hoover, used radio awkwardly. Hoover’s dark and somber prophecies of doom should FDR be elected seemed to match the prevalent pessimism of the time.

Roosevelt’s achievements in maintaining a prosperous, democratic society are now dimmed as George W. Bush’s administration comes to an end. Bush has flouted accountability, he has gutted effective economic regulation and he has circumvented the traditional workings of American government. Whether dealing with domestic issues or crusades abroad, Bush has left us a vastly different nation in seven short years.

The Bush practice of “trickle-down” economics, similar to Hoover’s depression remedies, are in stark contrast to Roosevelt’s direct relief measures for those needing help at the bottom of the economic ladder.

Surveying the magnitude and economic paralysis wrought by the Great Depression, FDR said extraordinary and emergency measures, propelled by a vigorous national government, were necessary for the United States to survive. He assaulted unscrupulous “money changers” who “faced by failure of credit, . . .have proposed only the lending of more money.“ Compared with today’s standards of virtually unregulated new banking practices, they were pikers.

Roosevelt offered no empty attack on “government spending.” He made no recommendations for permanent tax cuts for the very wealthy, instead, he directly confronted the nation’s financial disarray left by the banking system. Above all, he did not foster fear to govern.

Roosevelt proclaimed that “our greatest primary task is to put people to work.” The government, he proposed, would recruit workers for public works projects and provide work which in turn “would stimulate and reorganize the use of our natural resources.” FDR insisted that the Depression was analogous to an emergency of war, and the government would respond accordingly.

The New Deal launched vast public works projects, expanding and improving the nation’s infrastructure. The Works Progress Administration and Public Works Administration built roads, parks and airports. It employed people on cultural and historical projects, including the collection of slave narratives, public art and various records’ collections.

Now-forgotten conservatives railed against the public works program as a boondoggle but it is a historical marker for an imaginative and successful governmental effort to provide for the general welfare. More than eight million people, working on more than one million projects, benefited from the programs. We can recognize the physical achievements easily enough, but the intangible of providing gainful employment and instilling self-respect for productive work is beyond measure.

Public works essentially provided recovery and relief. But the Roosevelt administration’s enduring legacy came from its reform measures, most notably the Social Security Act. The administration also laid down numerous reform programs, including legislation and regulatory commissions for banking, securities, communications and labor practices.

However deep our current economic weakness, we have not approached the catastrophe that was the Great Depression. But the times, then as now, demand that government vigorously recognize and fulfill its responsibilities for “the general welfare,” as the Constitution mandates.

Since Roosevelt’s time, the government has recognized its broad responsibilities under the “general welfare” clause and the need to protect its citizens. The flooding of New Orleans a few years ago should have been the occasion for a vigorous governmental response.

Instead, while a great deal of federal money has been spent, much of New Orleans housing is still uninhabitable and the latest administration point man on the rebuilding resigned last week.

By most accounts – even, to some extent, the Bush administration’s – the U.S. economy is floundering. The American dollar is steadily falling to new lows. The credit crisis is still growing. The looming problem will be if the foreign money that sustains U.S. debt decides to reconsider current portfolios. The administration’s plans for a tax rebate, a tepid job re-training program, and other easy palliatives are out of touch with what appear to be deep, structural defects in our economy. Meanwhile, Citibank and other major funders sell more of themselves to foreign governments.

“Extraordinary” measures “propelled by a vigorous national government,” not paltry measures like a few-hundred-dollar rebate are clearly needed to attack the shortcomings of the U.S. economy. The adminstration is saying that taxpayers will spend that money to jump-start a lagging economy, and the flood of consumption will create more jobs. Ours is a consumer-driven economy, after all.

But, at best, the government offers only a band-aid to seduce people into believing it is doing something. And when we recover from our “spending spree,” what will the government then provide? Momentary tax rebates are the equivalent of Roman circuses.

In 1932, Walter Lippmann, the prominent public philosopher, described FDR as merely “a pleasant young man,” without any particular qualifications, who very much wanted to be president of the United States. Indeed, FDR had little in his record that the public could have anticipated a president worthy of the company of Washington and Lincoln. A week after the inauguration, Lippmann – certainly no stranger to changing his mind – praised the new president: “In one week the nation, which had lost confidence in everything and everybody, has regained confidence in the government and itself.”

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) talks of her “experience,” Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) offers“hope,” Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) promises “economy” and to capture Osama bin Laden. Each very much wants to be president of the United States.

Who knows? Their thin words might or might not yet deliver a leader to restore our standing and image abroad, to stimulate economic recovery, to spurn torture, to respect the separation of powers, to rein in the malevolent growth of the American empire, and begin to heal the conflicts and divisions that have haunted us for the past quarter-century and more.

They should consider Franklin Roosevelt as a worthy model to emulate.

Stanley Kutler is the author of “Privilege Creative Destruction: The Charles River Bridge Case” and “Abuse of Power: The New Nixon Tapes.” He is the E. Gordon Fox Emeritus Professor of American Institutions at the University of Wisconsin, and also professor of law.

photo credit: lauren burke, wdcpix

Mike Huckabee is a master at using the clever quip to deflect tough questions.

He toys with criticisms of his “fair tax” policy; at times he ignores the Sixteenth Amendment which makes the income tax indisputably constitutional. He has also made a shambles of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, which the Framers of the Constitution intended as the means for ensuring separation of church and state, and social peace in a diversified nation. Now, Huckabee has weighed in another constitutional matter. Again he has demonstrated his fecklessness, if not his ignorance.

On CNN’s “The Situation Room” (Jan. 8), Huckabee finessed the allegation that he favored stripping American citizenship from children born in the United States to illegal immigrants. That ever-present “someone,” he said, had suggested to him that bestowing citizenship on such children “needed to be reviewed.” The status of children of illegal immigrants who had come for the purpose of giving birth, Huckabee added, might indeed might be reconsidered.

Illustration by: Matt Mahurin

As he said, “I simply said that’s something the Supreme Court would have to rule on.” He maintained that rejecting citizenship “was only a conversation that someone had with me.” Again, that “someone.”

But why would – why should – the Supreme Court “reconsider” a constitutional amendment that has been clearly understood for more than 140 years? It could be that Huckabee betrays his “Old South” roots.

Does Huckabee want the Supreme Court to rule whether a constitutional provision is “constitutional” – or not? Perhaps Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, our leading “originalists,” might find that the Fourteenth Amendment violated the so-called “original understanding” of the Constitution.

You bet it did – and thankfully so. The Fourteenth Amendment settled the meaning of American citizenship and repudiated the so-called “three-fifths compromise” of the original document, in which “all other persons” – that is, slaves – counted only as three-fifths of a person. In this, and other ways, the original Constitution had legitimated slavery. The amendment provided a resolution of our constitutional division before 1861. The victorious North inscribed its triumph into the Constitution: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, . . . are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.” (Italics added.) The Constitution theoretically has no superfluous language; the command is unequivocal. The United States has, it should be added, the clearest, most generous and most humane definition of citizenship.

As both a preacher and a politician, Huckabee, naturally, loves to talk. But he appears to babble only silliness when he contemplates the possibility that the Fourteenth Amendment does not mean what it clearly states – or that the Supreme Court will say otherwise. He well knows that the Supreme Court – even his kind of Supreme Court – would have no choice. The Constitution is unequivocal.

In the remote chance that such a case wound its way through the courts, the highest court would undoubtedly dismiss the cause without comment. Perfect for Huckabee and others who choose not to consider real, valid solutions to fix the immigration “problem.”

They can claim that they tried—only to be thwarted by the Supreme Court. They would not be the first politicians to beg off responsibility and accountability.

For those who desire Draconian measures to deal with illegal immigrants, expelling the children or purging their proper citizenship is only for their dreams – and our nightmares.

Stanley Kutler is the editor of “The Encyclopedia of the Vietnam War” (Scribner’s, 1995) and the author of “The Wars of Watergate: The Last Crisis of Richard Nixon” (Alfred A. Knopf). He is the E. Gordon Fox Emeritus Professor of American Institutions at the University of Wisconsin, and also professor of law.