In part one I presented evidence that the bush Administration, for the value of one more phony reason to start a war, repeatedly denied Pentagon requests to attack the Zarqawi terrorist operation in Iraq prior to the invasion, a decision that cost the lives of Nick Berg and hundreds, perhaps thousands of others.
President Bush chose an invasion over surgical strikes against terrorist operations. This choice was made possible by the October, 2002 Congressional Resolution Authorizing Force Against Iraq.
During the “Hollywood” debate, Obama said this: "I don't want to just end the war, I want to end the mind-set that got us into war in the first place."
Now, he didn’t define “the mind-set”, leaving it open for interpretation. The statement could have many meanings, intended or not. Maybe he was alluding to the mind-set that war is just another tool in the foreign policy toolbox, to be employed whenever we think it will provide strategic advantage. Or perhaps he’s questioning the concept that war is a viable and legitimate catalyst for democracy, peace and security. I would hope he is challenging both conventions. One possible implication is that he was referring to the mind-set of a Congress that saw wisdom in authorizing the president to overthrow Saddam Hussein at his discretion.
The interpretations above have one thing in common. In all cases, Hillary Clinton necessarily shared the mind-set, or she could not have voted to authorize the president.
The Clinton campaign, of course, sees it differently. Her vote wasn’t to authorize war (factually accurate), and she couldn’t reasonably be expected to have predicted war would be the outcome (tough sell). Nevertheless, the invasion and its catastrophic wake were the result, and she should at a minimum take responsibility, and express regret, for her vote (as John Edwards and many others have done).
Hillary Clinton cannot avoid linkage between the Iraq authorization and her vote for the Kyl-Lieberman Amended National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2008. By declaring the Iranian National Guard a terrorist organization, the bill gives the president, at his whim, as part of the ‘global war on terror”, standing to attack Iran, and not just the “Guard”, but the Iranian Government responsible for the “terrorist organization”.
Furthermore, at the time of the Kyl-Lieberman vote, the Bush administration was making its case for an attack on Iran, while sitting on intelligence that showed Iran was not pursuing nuclear weapons, once again making policy independent of the intelligence, only this time failing, thus far anyway, and surely not for lack of trying, to “fix the intelligence around the policy”.
Whether Clinton knew of the intelligence consensus that Iran had suspended its nuclear program, if it had one to begin with, or not (she should have, as Sy Hersh wrote about it long before Kyl-Lieberman), is irrelevant. She recklessly green-lighted the president a second time, and this time she had to know that he could not be trusted with such authority. To be fair, the bill doesn’t actually grant authority, but does provide the necessary wiggle room for the president, as part of the “global war on terror”, to claim authority to attack Iran, so long as his deciding little mind deems it necessary to protect the American people.
Last Friday afternoon, at a $250 per paper plate luncheon in Seattle, John Kerry said this: “There isn’t anything that Hillary Clinton can do that Barack Obama can’t do. But there are things that Obama can do, that Hillary Clinton cannot.”
One of the primary objectives of the next administration, regardless of who is president, will be to rehabilitate our world standing. The electorate contributed significantly to our shameful state by, to the shock and dismay of much of the world, re-electing George Bush instead of choosing Kerry.
We cannot correct that mistake, but we can undo some of the damage by electing Obama, who can help us rebound in a way that Hillary cannot. He not only is tremendously charismatic, but he can uniquely deal with our allies and foes alike from a position of having opposed the “rash” and “dumb” war in Iraq before it began.
Which brings me back to Nick Berg. The president chose a policy of invasion/regime change over intelligence and surgical military strikes to take out terrorist operations, leaving the Zarqawi clan and their ricin/cyanide laboratory intact.
Hillary Clinton, by supporting the resolution to authorize war, and by criticizing Obama for daring to suggest military strikes on terrorist camps on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border should be on the table as an option (if, and only if, they could be clearly identified and the Pakistani government failed to act), has aligned herself with the Bush strategy of favoring pre-emptive war while eschewing pre-emptive surgical strikes, which represents a course that has tragically failed both the American and Iraqi people, and is opposite the policy that Obama has suggested before, and during, the Iraq war.
If the Bush Administration had, as Obama argued, not invaded Iraq, but instead chose surgical strikes on terrorist camps within the borders of recalcitrant, despotic states providing venues for terrorist operations, the war on terror would be going much better, our country would be safer, Iraq would still be intact, and hundreds of thousands of people, including Nick Berg, would not be dead.
Regarding foreign policy judgment, as it relates to the biggest foreign policy disaster in American history, Obama got it right, the president and Hillary Clinton got it wrong, and Nick Berg got his head sawed off. No, I’m not suggesting Hillary is responsible for Nick Berg’s death. That’s on Bush and Cheney. But I am suggesting, regarding the big picture on the “war on terror”, Obama has demonstrated a superior grasp.
In contrast with the Bush administration, and despite the efforts of political foes to paint Barack as just another influence peddling hack, the Obama candidacy isn’t just about the interests of lobbyists and cronies. It’s about us, and what we can do alongside Barack to bring this country back from the brink.
Can we end the war in Iraq? Can we regain our standing in the world? Can we make the “war on terror” a fight against terrorists, and not a war on Islam? Can we come together behind a “common purpose”? Can we, the people, not K-Street, be the dominant influence in the white house? Can we recognize a dumb war when we see it? Can we admit a mistake?
Can we “heal the nation”?
“Repair the world”?
Yes, we can!