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The Conversation with Dasha Burns

What Iran and China stand to gain from an Iraq AUMF repeal

The Conversation with Dasha Burns

POLITICO

News, Government, Politics

4.01.6K Ratings

🗓️ 17 March 2023

⏱️ 33 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

On Thursday, the Senate began to re-evaluate one of the most controversial episodes in American history: the Iraq war.  After a generation of use and abuse, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer is calling a vote to repeal the Iraq AUMF, or authorization for the use of military force, which has been a key underpinning for America’s so-called “forever wars” in the Middle East. But Stephen Hadley, the man who was the architect of many of the national security policies that the Iraq AUMF enabled, has something to say before Congress votes. Hadley was President George W. Bush’s national security advisor from 2005 to 2009 and was Dick Cheney’s guy at the negotiating table with Russia during the George H.W. Bush administration. Now, he has just published a book called Hand-Off: The Foreign Policy George W. Bush Passed to Barack Obama that chronicles 20 years of war and politics in America.  On this week’s episode of Playbook Deep Dive, Playbook co-author Ryan Lizza speaks with the former Bush adviser about what we stand to lose if Congress is sloppy about repealing the Iraq war AUMF, what Bush got right and wrong on China, how Joe Biden’s foreign policy echoes Bush’s Freedom Agenda, and how President Biden can learn from Bush’s successes and failures dealing with Vladimir Putin. Ryan Lizza is a Playbook co-author for POLITICO.Stephen Hadley is the former National Security Advisor for President George W. Bush.Afra Abdullah is an associate producer for POLITICO audio.Kara Tabor is a producer for POLITICO audio.Alex Keeney is a senior producer for POLITICO audio.Jenny Ament is the executive producer for POLITICO audio. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

History shall be kind to me, for I intend to write it.

0:04.6

Those are the famous words of Winston Churchill, whose career included big triumphs, like

0:12.6

Britain's victory over Adolf Hitler in World War II, and also some abysmal failures,

0:18.2

like the bloody and superfluous Scalipoli campaign in World War I.

0:23.2

On Thursday, the Senate began to re-evaluate one of the most controversial episodes in

0:28.9

our own history, the Iraq War.

0:33.6

Because in a legal sense, that war is still not over.

0:38.1

From President Obama's on-again, off-again romance with drone strikes, to President Trump's

0:43.4

controversial assassination of Iranian general Kaseem Soleimani, this 21-year-old

0:49.3

statute has been a key underpinning for America's so-called forever wars.

0:55.6

But after a generation of use and abuse, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer is calling

1:00.4

a vote to repeal the Iraq AUMF, or authorization for the use of military force.

1:06.9

It is the rare measure that just might pass both houses with bipartisan support.

1:12.6

The man who is the architect of many of the national security policies that the Iraq AUMF

1:17.0

enabled has just published a lengthy new book evaluating the Bush foreign policy legacy,

1:23.8

and he has something to say before Congress votes.

1:28.4

I'm Ryan Liza, and this is Playbook Deep Dive.

1:35.4

Stephen Hadley has seen it all.

1:37.8

At the height of his long and influential career, he served as National Security Advisor

1:42.1

to President George W. Bush.

1:44.4

He occupied that post from 2005 to 2009, and played a key role in salvaging the war in

1:50.6

Iraq at a time when things were going very, very wrong.

...

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