Do Democrats need a new strategy to win the "war" for the hearts and minds of the American public? If Republicans are against "cutting and running," you can be damned sure they have carefully focus-group tested this phrase and it has shown to be effective with a discreet and important slice of the electorate. You can be sure that they are focusing on a very small but significant demographic with this phrase, targetting pro-war, pro-patriotism voters who still want to win in Iraq to fulfill their Rambo/TopGun fantasies. This demographic, even if it's only five percent of the electorate, WILL be convinced by an appeal not to "cut and run", because they haven't soured on the Iraq War - they've soured only on LOSING the Iraq war. Understanding this helps Democrats craft their messages for 2006 and 2008.
Unfortunately elections are won and lost on the smallest of margins, so a targeted appeal not to "cut and run" has the potential to be very effective for the Republicans in 2006 and 2008. I'd like to think this isn't true, but I remember the disappointment I felt after Nixon was re-elected in 1972 - at the height of the Vietnam War. An electorally important slice of America still likes a good war. Today, if these war lovers have turned against Bush, it is only because he has failed to win this war, and not because they oppose war and unnecessary killing in the abstract.
Unfortunately, this theory may well be tested again before the Iraq War is over. Bush may actually increase aggressive action to prove that he is trying to "win". If he fails and McCain is elected in 2008, McCain may increase troop levels in Iraq (and implement the draft to do so), to test the theory that America might have won if only we had engaged Iraq with overwhelming force.
No one has ever lost money betting that America loves a war, but many (mostly Democratic politicians) have lost elections opposing wars, e.g. Hubert Humphrey, George McGovern, Jimmy Carter (who neglected to bomb Iran during the hostage "crisis"), Kerry (insufficiently in favor of "winning" in Iraq). The Democrats will need a very effective counter-strategy, but unfortunately, I don't think the Democrats have found that strategy yet.
What would be this effective counter-strategy? Most of us would fight someone for a good reason, even if we won't fight anyone for a bad reason. We need to focus on our determination to fight under the right circumstances. The winning strategy might be to promise to re-evaluate the current engagement with a strategy based on strict cost-benefit analysis, (not publicly opposing the war but promising to conclude it more intelligently and successfully) while promising to engage in future wars based only on the same strict cost-benefit analysis and America's strategic interests.
Then, once the Democrats win office, a simple cost-benefit analysis will require redeployment of troops out of the futile Iraq conflict. Moreover, Democrats will not enter into similar engagements in the future because they will simply be unable to find any needless and futile wars that meet the strict cost-benefit criteria that they championed during the elections.
This approach has something for everyone: It promises a good war with real foreign policy advantages, American victories and heroes, should the opportunities present themselves. But it also implicitly promises that we will not enter into wars that don't meet a strict cost-benefit analysis, wars that cannot be won, that will alienate America from its allies while increasing American indebtedness.
So shouldn't we promise right now not to get into wars that result in military failure, lost allies and indebtedness? Absolutely NOT! Democrats must never run against war! Democrats instead must run IN FAVOR of only military interventions that meet carefully stated, strict cost-benefit analyses, carefully calculated and limited in time, purpose and scope to secure America's strategic interests.
Democrats ought never promise not to engage in war, because situations change from day to day, and so necessarily do the costs and benefits of any particular proposed engagement.
This is why Democrats can promise to seriously consider war while never actually engaging in any that are unnecessary or ill-advised. But if Democrats appear to be war-averse in the abstract, we will be unable to win the support of the pro-security voters and will again lose one presidential election after another, as we did before the Clinton years.
In fact, Bill Clinton expertly championed the strategy that I propose. During his tenure, the United States was not engaged in pointless, endless or unreasonably expensive engagements and had no significant wars or wars with a high loss of troops. Clinton stated a clear policy for determining when war was preferable and necessary, and the US/UN intervention in Kosovo is a good example of this, as summarized in one of Clinton's 1999 speeches during the height of that intervention. His particular strategy explains why Clinton left office with a 66% favorability rating, even though he neither refrained from engagements nor did he enter stupidly into them.
"PRESIDENT CLINTON: Good afternoon. I just had a good meeting with a large bipartisan delegation from both Houses of Congress on Kosovo. It was our fourth meeting since the airstrikes began." http://www.cnn.com/...
"We spoke about the NATO summit, its unity and determination to achieve our objectives in Kosovo, about the progress of our military campaign and the intensification of economic sanctions, about the humanitarian challenge that we face and the work that we and our allies are doing to meet it."
"Just on Monday, some 3,500 Kosovar refugees in trains and buses arrived in Montenegro. Yesterday about 5,000 entered Macedonia. Almost 3,000 arrived in Albania, exhausted, hungry, shaken, all by the violence and abuse they experienced on the way. At one point, 1.8 million ethnic Albanians lived in Kosovo. Nearly 1.5 million have been displaced since the start of the crisis."
"Our humanitarian coordinator, Brian Atwood, who just returned from the region, has described an elderly Albanian woman he met in a camp outside Tirana. She saw all the male members of her family and most of the men in her village rounded up by Serbian authorities, tied up, doused with gasoline, and set on fire in front of their families. It's the kind of story that would be too horrible to believe if it were not so consistent with what so many other refugees have been saying."
"What we need to remember is that this is the result of a meticulously planned campaign, not an isolated incident of out-of- control rage, a campaign organized by the government of Belgrade for a specific political purpose -- to maintain its grip over Kosovo by ridding the land of its people."
"This policy must be defeated."
"And it will be defeated. That was the clear message of the NATO summit. Nineteen democratically-elected NATO leaders came together to demonstrate their unity and determination to prevail."
"We agreed to intensify the air campaign and that is what NATO is doing, both against military targets in Kosovo and against the infrastructure of political and military power in Belgrade."
"Our partners in southeastern Europe, the front line states, who are risking so much and who have borne such a heavy burden, have followed through on their pledges of support."
"We are also providing more funds to the UN High Commission for Refugees and to NGOs to deliver food and supplies to the refugees. Our Defense Department has found a site for the facility it will build in Albania for up to 20,000 refugees. We hope it will begin taking in refugees in about two weeks."
"I spoke to members of Congress about all these efforts today. I told that now is the time to pass the supplemental funding for Kosovo that I requested nine days ago."
"We need it to maintain our military readiness. Just as important, we need to sustain humanitarian relief and support for the front-line nations that have absorbed the brunt of this emergency."
"Let me stress that my request fully funds our military and humanitarian needs in Kosovo. Congress should resist the temptations to add unrelated expenditures, even important ones, which could delay the process, because that would undermine the very goals that this funding is intended to meet."
"We must get a Kosovo funding measure passed and to my desk now."
"We also talked about other legislative initiatives pending on Kosovo in the Congress. I stressed that the 19 NATO allies are speaking with a single voice. America must continue to speak with a single voice as well. I told them we would welcome the support of the Congress so that Mr. Milosevic will have no doubt that we have the determination and the patience to persevere until we prevail."
"Each day our military campaign takes a toll on Serbia's machinery of repression. The Serbian leadership has failed to divide us and will not outlast us. The combined military might and moral determination of Europe and North America will endure. We know what the final outcome will be. The Serbian forces will leave Kosovo, an international security force will deploy to protect all the people there, Serbs as well as Albanians. And the refugees will return with security and self-government."
If Democrats just promise to exercise the same reason and good judgment that Clinton did, engaging intelligently and selectively rather than not at all, while showing the determination to win engagements if they become preferable and necessary, then Democrats can again win the US presidency and both houses of Congress.