A Democratic strategy for Iraq
Gene Lyons
Posted on Wednesday, August 31, 2005
Don't hold your breath, but Democrats may be showing signs of life in
the national debate over Iraq. For most of three years, including Sen.
John Kerry's presidential campaign, party leaders have appeared fearful
of challenging George W. Bush's belligerent bungling. They haven't
wanted voters to mistake them for George McGovern, the World War II
bomber pilot and 1972 Democratic presidential candidate who made the
mistake of being right about Vietnam too soon. Now that may be changing.
As recently as July, the party establishment worried that Americans
couldn't be trusted to make elementary distinctions. Writing in the
Democratic Leadership Council's Blueprint Magazine, Will Marshall opined
that while "[i] ntellectually, of course, it's possible to separate Iraq
and the war on terror," Democrats needed to be wary lest voters mistake
them for anti-American, hippie pacifists. "[A] s the opposition party,"
Marshall wrote, "Democrats have a responsibility to hold the White House
accountable for the painfully high price we've paid in Iraq, the
thousands killed and wounded, and the billions of dollars spent. But
they must do so in a way that makes it clear they are rooting for
America to succeed in Iraq."
Marshall urged the party to heed the example of Sens. Joe Biden, John
Kerry, Evan Bayh and Hillary Rodham Clinton, "who have set an example
for responsible, progressive patriotism."
Rooting for America to succeed in Iraq? As in rooting for the Chicago
Cubs to win the National League Central? The bitter truth is that we're
far beyond that. Moreover, the cultural climate is very different. Try
as they may, right-wing talk radio savants can't turn a grieving mother
turned anti-war protester, Cindy Sheehan, into another "Hanoi Jane"
Fonda--partly because there's no military draft, there are no mobs of
"flower children" chanting slogans in support of Saddam Hussein or
barbaric Iraqi insurgents.
Polls show that most Americans have made the basic distinction that DLC
thinkers feared would escape them. Recent surveys show that the majority
understand that invading Iraq on a false pretext has made the nation not
less but more vulnerable to terrorism, weakening the U.S. military,
draining the treasury, alienating America's natural allies among the
world's democracies and sowing Arab fanaticism like dragon's teeth.
Many see Bush's famous "resoluteness" for what it is: a stubborn
inability to admit error or to compromise with reality. And they're
beginning to wonder if it's really possible that the U.S. will remain in
Iraq indefinitely to guarantee the security of an Islamic state allied
with Iran.
Meanwhile, most Democrats agree with the question put by former Colorado
Sen. Gary Hart in a recent Washington Post column: "[W] hat will history
say about an opposition party that stands silent while all this goes
on?" Many have begun to despair of leadership from the aforementioned
U.S. senators, all of whom voted in favor of giving Bush a blank check
to do as he pleased on Iraq back in October 2002 and can't seem to admit
they were bamboozled.
But there's at least one name-brand Democrat who wasn't obliged to vote
in 2002, and whose patriotism is hard to question: retired Gen. Wesley
Clark. Maybe that's why the former NATO supreme commander and neophyte
2004 presidential candidate has taken the lead.
Beginning with a trenchant column in The Washington Post and a
subsequent appearance on NBC News' "Meet the Press," Clark has begun a
calculated assault on the Bush administration's Iraq policy from the
right and left simultaneously. "More than half the American people now
believe that the invasion of Iraq was a mistake," Clark writes. "They're
right. But it would also be a mistake to pull out now, or to start
pulling out or to set a date certain for pulling out. Instead, we need a
strategy to create a stable, democratizing and peaceful state in Iraq--a
strategy the administration has failed to develop and articulate."
Clark lays down what he calls "a three-pronged strategy: diplomatic,
political and military" to deal with the realities the Bush
administration ignored in its half-baked belief that American invaders
would be greeted by flower-throwing throngs. Almost none, frankly, has
any likelihood of being enacted. Hire 10,000 Arab-American translators?
Convene a regional security council to hash things out with Iraq's
neighbors, i. e., Iran, Syria, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, etc.? Not gonna
happen. And then? "If the administration won't adopt a winning
strategy," Clark writes, "then the American people will be justified in
demanding that it bring our troops home." He doesn't pretend that would
be a good thing. Asked about the consequences of retreat in an online
forum, Clark concedes that "[a] n exit that leaves behind violence,
chaos and civil war will be viewed as a clear American defeat. And it
will supercharge terrorist recruiting, increase problems for American
diplomacy... and increase the danger closer to home." Clark only implies
that retreat could end up being the least bad option.
http://www.nwanews.com/story.php?paper=adg§ion=Editorial&storyid=127033