An honest reckoning on Hillary's vote is what we had tonight. Her explanations were unvarnished, without political artifice. I recognize that the common rubric that we use to analyze all of HRC's decisions focuses almost exclusively on political expediency. However, I think it is past time that we conclude that her decision to vote to authorize the President to use force in Iraq was made essentially on the merits as she saw them.
On what do I base this judgment? I think, in part, on her explanation for why she opposed the Levin Amendment. The amendment provided her with the perfect political out; she could've claimed that Bush failed to meet a criteria she had sought all along--prior UN approval. If her decision had been based exclusively on the need to position herself for a future presidential run, an aye on Levin would've been the only reasonable strategy. She demurred.
So if we then conclude that the arguments she fronted tonight at the debate were the arguments that drove her decision, were the arguments that composed the better part of her calculus, we then must evaluate these arguments on their merits. Too many tonight have dismissed her answers on Iraq as jargon and essentially obfuscatory. I found them particularly revealing. Taking them one at a time:
- The idea that the AUMF lent credibility to the subsequent coercive diplomacy that she believed Bush would pursue is probably, on its face, true. Certainly, the resolution made the threat of force more real and, as such, probably helped to compel Hussein to admit inspectors.
Of course, a corollary of this argument is that Hillary implicitly trusted Bush when his surrogates assured her that this was the course they intended to take. Did she earnestly believe this? Who knows. Clearly there were two factions within the administration. If Hillary was reliant on Rice to convey to her the overarching administration strategy, it's not unsurprising that she considered the invasion as the option of last resort instead of concluding the AUMF provided a mere pre-text for a course of events that was already predetermined. She clearly misjudged the relative balance of power between the two factions in the White House.
- She believed much of the intelligence that was presented to her. Obviously there were dissenting opinions being voiced by analysts, most notably within the Department of Energy. But her judgment was made with two gargantuan intelligence failures in mind. First, as her husband was taking office in 1992, it was becoming apparent the extent to which the CIA had underestimated the progress Hussein had made towards a nuclear weapon. Second, and less directly related, although more emotionally impactful, was the failure of the CIA to predict the Sept 11th attacks, the largest of which occurred in her adopted home state. The only definitive way to determine the extent of Iraq's program was to coerce them into admitting inspectors. She saw the AUMF as the most effective tool to elicit Iraqi cooperation. Let us also not forget that Hussein himself was complicit in his own demise. He attempted to shield from the world the extent to which Iraq had failed in its attempts to acquire nuclear weapons. He wanted to maintain the illusion of a weapons program in order to deter Iran. This was a costly mistake and one that none predicted Saddam would make.
In retrospect, it is easy to see the error in the decisions that were made. And I realize that this may sound like hedging--but the argument that Hillary is making is indistinguishable from the argument that Obama made in his Oct 26th, 2002 speech. In it, he advocated strongly for the admission of inspectors (which would later come in large part because of the resolution Clinton favored). But, per Hillary tonight, neither she nor Obama favored war. She states that she would've never taken the country to war, regardless of whether or not she had the authorization to do so.
I think the question comes down to one of trust---do you trust her in her explanation? She was clearly wrong to trust Bush. An admitted mistake that many of us made.
As for how you see the politics of her Iraq narrative. I think that depends on how you see her motives. I think a charitable version sees her evolution on the war as mirroring many Americans': They saw the need to admit inspectors, were off-put by the speed in which Bush concluded Blix had failed and then subsequently invaded. Slowly, they recognized the disaster that the occupation had wrought but concluded that some danger existed in a too-rapid withdrawal.
Vis-a-vis Obama's argument, is it not equally powerful for Hillary to stand up to McCain and say, "Senator, we were all wrong in trusting George Bush. We have made mistakes, myself included. But I long ago recognized the futility in continuing a war that only the Iraqis can win." I think this resonates with a huge portion of the public, in part because it exactly mirrors the emotions that they too have grappled with and it helps to confirm the conclusions that many of them have already made. It does so in a way that doesn't denigrate McCain (indeed it identifies with him) and, because of that, I think will have a particular appeal to independents, many of whom supported the war.
Hillary as a stand-in for the American public, voicing sentiments most felt and supporting conclusions many have now since made, instead of once again dividing the country into those that were right and those that were wrong, is a truly unifying message on Iraq.