Much discussion of what the new Democratic majorities would do about the Iraq war has focused on the party’s plans to swamp the administration in oversight — investigations into pre-war planning, post-war planning, etc. Beyond that, lots of Democrats will advocate U.S. withdrawal from Iraq. But far fewer Democrats have urged the party to be so bold as to take the bigger step of cutting off funding for the war, which might well open them up to charges of not supporting the troops and undermining the war effort.

Not so Washington Post national security reporter (and former Democratic Hill staffer) Walter Pincus, who, in an opinion piece to be published tomorrow, urges just that strategy — in steps. “Now that they’ll soon be back in control, congressional Democrats are looking to play a role in shaping U.S. policy on the Iraq war,” Pincus writes. “If they want a precedent to follow, there’s a good one — from the Vietnam War era.”

I witnessed this precedent up close nearly four decades ago, when I worked on Capitol Hill for Sen. J. William Fulbright (D-Ark.), then chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. In 1969, Congress’s ruling Democrats began to offer amendments to funding bills — often approved with Republican votes — to limit President Richard M. Nixon’s military alternatives in Southeast Asia. Although the Hatfield-McGovern amendment to cut off money for the war was defeated in August 1970, it accelerated Nixon’s steps toward Vietnamization of the fighting. And three years later, with withdrawal of U.S. forces having begun, Congress voted to cut off all funding for “offensive” military action, sealing the deal.
The first of the limiting amendments from that time could be a model for today’s Democrats. Approved in December 1969, the so-called Laos-Thailand amendment to the Defense Appropriations bill of 1970 provided that no money could be used to put U.S. ground combat troops in Laos or Thailand. The purpose of that language, which originated with Fulbright and the Foreign Relations Committee, was to set up barriers to the automatic expansion of the war and to hold the Nixon administration to its promises….
Democrats today could follow the Fulbright pattern…