A Republican friend of mine desperate for a strong option (of any party stripe) in 2006 / 2008 sent me a very good Newsweek piece about Democratic feebleness on national security.
Written by Michael Hirsh, who claims to have no horse in this race, the
article dissects the fear Democrats seem destined to possess on defense matters. And it's ridiculous, because national security is ripe for the taking.
According to the piece,
I hold no brief in this fight, being neither Democrat nor Republican. But here is a message to those few Democrats who retain their self-confidence and sanity (I'm not sure who you are, but there must be some): Come back from the shadows. If you can look past your fears, America's entire national-security apparatus is out there making your case for you.
Talk to any responsible official or officer in the military, intelligence or diplomatic community. Most will tell you that Bush got most of the war on terror wrong (at least after the Taliban fell), that he invented a war of choice in Iraq and failed to finish the war of necessity against Al Qaeda. The toughest hombres in the country--not least some recently retired generals--are saying the "war president" has no clothes, that he has been, in effect, a disastrous war president. This is what I hear every week now as a reporter, from officials who identify themselves as Republican, Democrat or independent. It is what the facts, sadly, bear out: look at where the precipitous war in Iraq has brought us, and the new violence that is arising out of the unfinished business against the Taliban and Al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Yet the vast majority of Democratic leaders cannot bring themselves to say this--Hillary most prominently of all.
That's exactly right. Just look at Iran: the White House knows it has absolutely no political capital to launch any kind of neo-con pre-emptive attack, so it's fallen back on diplomacy - sounding a lot like, well, DEMOCRATS.
As Hirsh explains:
Sift through the wreckage of the neoconservative program that Bush adopted. Its central tenets--pre-emptive attacks on rogue regimes, unilateralist disdain for international legitimacy and institutions, the cavalier attitude that war and military solutions should be the primary, or default, approach to foreign problems--are all gone with the wind. What's left? Effectively the foreign policy of pragmatic global leadership invented by such Democrats as FDR, Truman, JFK and Scoop Jackson, and largely endorsed by Republicans such as Dwight Eisenhower, Richard Nixon and, yes, even Ronald Reagan.
To oversimplify, its tenets are: Stand up for democracy and freedom, yes, but keep the international system on your side. Make use of the United Nations whenever you can, though not necessarily, bending it to your needs when possible. Create as many allies as you can. Listen. Accommodate. Be magnanimous. Above all, make sure you have more guys on your side than your adversaries have on theirs. It is the policy that Bush, chastened and weakened by Iraq, has followed on Libya and North Korea, and it is the policy he now appears to be pursuing on Iran, having agreed to talk to Tehran. And it is largely Democratic in origins and practice.
True again. I heard Rick Santorum on Imus this morning trying to talk tough -- in the neo-con way, not reasonably -- on Iran. Imus finally got him to say that invasion was on the table. But you could just hear the reluctance in Rick's voice when it came out -- not because he doesn't believe invasion is the default preference, but because he knows Americans won't be bullied into unnecessary war again.
To seize this issue, the answer isn't to meet the GOP half way down the neo-con path. It's time to call out the policy for what's it's been in the national message: a fucking disaster that leaves us severely weakened in the face of true future threats.
Or, in other words:
But to get to the point where they can hark back to this simple program, and confidently embrace it without protesting too much about how tough they are, Democrats must first have the courage to strip bare the GOP's failures. They must believe they're every bit as good on national security as their rivals. This courage is frankly not in evidence. Five and half years on we see the Republicans, as brazen and full of self-confidence as ever about their national-security credentials, and the Democrats, as timid and full of self-doubt as they ever have been over the same issue. Hence, the need for a good therapist, one with a very large office.
No one looks like a wimp when he or she tells the truth. And the public is crying, pleading for someone to tell the truth. The Democratic hawks seem to think that if they confront Bush over the fundamentals of his foreign policy, they will be forced to admit it was wrong to go into Iraq at the moment and in the way we did. And if they have to admit that, then they must back immediate withdrawal from Iraq. Nonsense. Most Americans now know, without being told, that American prestige is on the line in Iraq. And that any withdrawal will be slow and painful. This is now settled U.S. policy, and it will be followed by whoever the next president is, Democrat or Republican.
The country is desperate for adult leadership, for competence and authority--above all, for an honest reckoning with all that's gone wrong. And the country isn't getting it. Maybe that helps to explain the Al Gore revival under way. Here, at least, was someone who can remember what adulthood was like--what it was like to hold power. Most of his Democratic colleagues appear to have forgotten.
As we've discussed a good bit on KOS, it's critical to tie energy independence to our national security, as I think it's the most important component. But Democrats should also point out other stark differences. And they should be confident.
There should be no more talk about "neutralizing" the national security issue so we can move to our domestic policy advantage. National security should be taken from the Republicans, period.