Don't take my word for it. Go to his site
here and look up his Wednesday, November 08, 2006 post, under the heading "What does it Mean for Iraq?" posted by Prof. Cole 11/08/2006 06:30:00 AM. He actually goes far beyond the meaning for Iraq, which in contrast to his headline's implication is surprisingly little.
But oh, baby, does he ever hit a home run.
He begins with the most clear-eyed, non-Mehlmanesque, anti-Bennetarian assessment of what happened yesterday, into the early hours of today:
The fourth popular revolution of the twenty-first century (after the Ukraine, Lebanon and Kyrgyzstan) swept America on Tuesday, as voters engaged in the moral equivalent of storming the Bastille. The United States of America has roundly repudiated the Bush Administration and Republican Party dominance of all three branches of the Federal government and its dominance of many state offices, as well. Corruption and war drove this slap in the face to the Old Regime crafted by Newt Gingrich and Traitor Rove.
My only disagreement is, I don't think "Traitor Rove" should rate a capital "t." To add a bit of perspective on the enormity of this development, read a little deeper:
In fact, this was not an ordinary election but rather came at the end of 14 years of low blows and dirty tricks. The Republicans had tried very hard to have a permanent majority, using ruses such as state gerrymandering (e.g. Texas) and convincing Republican House members who were thinking of retiring to serve one more term so as not to risk having the open seat go to the Dems. Tom Delay's K-Street Project even envisioned depriving the Democrats forever of big lobbying money. The impeachment of Clinton was a cynical misuse of the Republican majority aimed at permanently wounding the Democrats. The Dems did not impeach Reagan for stealing Pentagon weapons, selling them to Khomeini, and using the black money to fund death squads in Central America! The deployment of a Republican Supreme Court to gain the White House in 2000 was typical of the new end run around popular sovereignty perfected by the party hacks in Washington. Given the giant berms the Republicans had built against any Democratic rebound, and the viciousness with which raptors like Delay, Weldon, Rove and Abramoff went for the soft underbelly of the democratic system, it is an irridescent (sic) miracle that the Democrats have taken the House.
This is all true, yet it leaves out the cynical unleashing of rabid pseudo-Christian zealots, monstrous last-ditch criminal election interference, years of playing upon the most horrible fears of the American people, race-baiting and bigotry, and any number of other offenses to normal sensibilities all designed to perpetuate power in the GOP.
Then the professor shines in breaking it all down into four bite-sized chunks:
First, it demonstrates once again that the American public simply will not put up with a return to the age of colonialism and does not want to occupy Asian countries militarily.
There's a bit more to his point but suffice it to say, all Americans, except maybe George W. Bush and Barney, wanted the Iraq occupation to be over--not today or tomorrow, but know that a process was under way that would wind the bloody horror show down for good. His next point is a nice one, too, and one that I considered last night:
Second, Bush is not going to be able to put any more Scalia types on the Federal benches or the Supreme Court.
It's looking like a safe assumption (it might be a fait accompli when I post this) that the Democratic majority in the Senate will hold up. Filibuster, nuclear option, those are words from a dead past, as far as Senate Judiciary is concerned.
Third, a Bush administration war on Iran now seems highly unlikely. A major initiative of that sort would need funding, and I don't think Congress will grant it. The Democrats don't want an Iran with a nuclear weapon any more than the Republicans do. But they are more likely to recognize that there is no good evidence that Iran even has a nuclear weapons program, and have been chastened by Iraq enough to distrust purely military solutions to such crises.
Funny thing: not one fact will have changed about Iran but we just won't hear that war drumbeat any more. Rummie is gone and the political upside to attack, if there ever was any, is over, dead and buried.
Fourth, there will now finally be accountability. It is obvious to me that the Bush administration has been engaged in large-scale crimes and corruption, and has gotten away with it because the Republican heads of the relevant committees have refused to investigate these crimes. Democratic committee heads with subpoena power will finally be able to force the Pentagon and other institutions to fork over the smoking gun documents, and then will be in a position to prosecute.
Cole gives some doozy examples but here's an area that he forgot: The crimes of Congress are still to be investigated. I have a feeling we will see some resignations in 2007 that will open up seats for special elections. It isn't over yet for the Democrats. And it isn't over for Hastert, not by a long march, and the Rethuglican Party might have some `splainin' to do, Loocie. By the way: A Democratic Congress gah-run-TEES no pardons. If Bush is too dumb to figure it out, Rove and Cheney will tell him: "Pardon anyone, and they come with pitchforks and torches FOR ALL OF US."
Here is the one, however, that Cole missed and I'm amazed because he engaged in it himself, so I offer Point Fifth: Harry Reid was right. All false modesty aside, this would not have been possible without us. We blogged, diaried, posted, learned, educated, ranted, parodied, preached, mourned, celebrated, donated, exposed, promoted, analyzed, scrutinized, linked and YouTubed all the Hell over the place. We became an issue, which meant we were a threat, and it was a very valid threat to the Culture of Corruption. "Swiftboating" and "Freeping" became part of our political shorthand. We didn't just "Crash the Gates"--we smashed them, burned them and scattered the ashes. We did it in, what, just over two years? And we ain't done yet.
Finally, let's spend just a bit of time on Cole's assessment of implications:
The Democratic victory has enormous implications for US domestic politics. There will likely be an increase in the minimum wage, e.g. And the creeping tyranny of the evangelical far right has been slowed; even a lot of evangelicals seem uncomfortable with where that was going, and a lot of them deserted the Republicans in this election.
What are its implications for Iraq policy? Those are fewer, just because the executive makes foreign policy. Congress can only intervene decisively by cutting off money for foreign military adventures, which the Democrats have already pledged not to do. Moreover, the Iraq morass is a hopeless case and even if the legislature had more to say about policy there, it is not as if there are any good options.
I have a minor disagreement with the latter point. I think we all tend to be so U.S.-centric (and the Professor recognizes this with a brilliant parenthetical, " (as if the US could dictate Iraq's future!)" we overlook some other international implications. I had been waiting for the Brits to toss Tony Blair overboard so we could more easily wind down Bush, but any remaining international currency Blair had is now gone forever. It's a double-win from an Iraq perspective.
Cole then turns prophet--remember, he wrote this at six in the morning--with this:
What we can say is that the electoral outcome is a bellwether for the future of American involvement in Iraq. It will now gradually come to an end, barring a dramatic disaster, such as a guerrilla push to deprive our troops of fuel and then to surround and besiege them. More likely, the steady grind of bad news and further senseless death will force Bush's successor, whoever it, is, to get out of that country. One cannot imagine us staying in Afghanistan for the long haul, either. Bush's question in 2003 was, can we go back to the early 20th century and have a sort of Philippines-like colony with a major military investment? The answer is, "no." Iraqis are too politically and socially mobilized to be easily dominated in the way the old empires dominated isolated, illiterate peasants. The outcome of the Israel-Hizbullah war this summer further signalled (sic) that the peasants now have sharper staves that even penetrate state of the art tanks. The US can still easily win any wars it needs to win. It cannot any longer win long military occupations. The man who knew this most surely in the Bush administration, Donald Rumsfeld, most egregiously gave in to the occupation route, and will end up the fall guy as the public mood turns increasingly ugly in both countries.
How the once mighty have already fallen.
On a personal note, till the day I die I will remember election night, 2000, sitting in the car with my then 7-year old son when Florida was (correctly) called for Gore. He could not have had a bigger smile and brighter eyes if I had said, "Santa's coming and it's your birthday!!" When I had to explain to him why Mr. Bush was president, it tore my guts out. I had no idea how we would ever get out from under this fascist. My son is 13 now and knows the score. He stayed up late with me last night, and celebrated.
I feel like I gave something back to him, something terribly important, that had been stolen. It's a good day indeed.