Presidential politics and the Iraq War

I was generally pleased with both the tone and the substance of the discussion between Clinton and Obama in Thursday night's debate on the topic of the Iraq War. Especially their explicit recognition that the two leading Republican candidates, Maverick McCain and Romney, both embrace the highly unpopular Cheney-Bush war policies. And Clinton and Obama both seem ready to draw the contrasts on those policies in a way that somehow John Kerry could never bring himself to do in 2004. (See Transcript of Thursday's Democratic presidential debate 01/31/08 CNN.com.)

Obama reminded everyone that "a John McCain, or any other Republican - ... they all want basically a continuation of George Bush's policies" on that war. He said that the war "has undermined our security" while "Afghanistan has slid into more chaos than existed before we went into Iraq", said "I am happy to have that argument" with the Republican candidate. And he challenged the bold Maverick on his dingy position on the Iraq War: "When John McCain suggests that we might be there 100 years, that, I think, indicates a profound lack of understanding "

This comment from Clinton is so clear even some Republicans might be able to understand it:

And, you know, I think both Barack and I have tried in these debates - and sometimes been pushed by some of our opponents - to be as responsible as we can be, because we know that this president, based on what he said in the State of the Union, intends to leave at least 130,000, if not more, troops in Iraq as he exits. It's the most irresponsible abdication of what should be a presidential commitment to end what he started.

So, we will inherit it. And therefore, I will do everything I can to get as many of our troops out as quickly as possible, taking into account all of these contingencies that we're going to have to contend with once we are in charge and once we can get into the Pentagon to figure out what's really there and what's going on. (my emphasis)

Actually, that last phrase, "once we can get into the Pentagon to figure out what's really there and what's going on", made me wonder if she's not referring to a lot more than just having the generals produce exit plans, which is the context in which she said it.

With Edwards out of the race - after my absentee ballot went in with my vote for him - I'm still inclined to favor Clinton over Obama, because her positions on withdrawal from Iraq and on universal health coverage both go farther toward what needs to be done that Obama's do, and because I'm still more confident in Clinton willingness to fight when the Republicans start throwing everything they have at her.

I'd have to say that on the latter score, this debate gave me a higher level of confidence in Obama's fighting qualities.

On the Iraq War, I thought Clinton came off better on Thursday in sounding like she knew what had to be done:

But I just want to be very clear with people, that it's not only bringing our young men and women and our equipment out, which is dangerous. They have got to go down those same roads where they have been subjected to bombing and so much loss of life and injury. We have to think about what we're going to do with the more than 100,000 Americans civilians who are there, working for the embassy, working for businesses, working for charities.

And I also believe we've got to figure out what to do with the Iraqis who sided with us. You know, a lot of the drivers and translators saved so many of your young men and women's lives, and I don't think we can walk out on them without having some plan as to how to take care of those who are targeted.

At the same time, we have got to tell the Iraqi government there is no -- there is no more time. They are out of time. They have got to make the tough decisions they have avoided making. They have got to take responsibility for their own country.

Obama impressed me more on Thursday in terms of examining the broader premises of foreign policy that helped get us into the Iraq War in the first place. Part of it was in his positioning himself as more credible in making the case for withdrawal because of his initial opposition to the war:

We both have said that we need to have a strike force that can take out potential terrorist bases that get set up in Iraq. But the one thing that I think is very important is that we not get mission creep, and we not start suggesting that we should have troops in Iraq to blunt Iranian influence.

If we were concerned about Iranian influence, we should not have had this government installed in the first place.

(APPLAUSE)

We shouldn't have invaded in the first place. It was part of the reason that I think it was such a profound strategic error for us to go into this war in the first place.

(APPLAUSE)

And that's one of the reasons why I think I will be -- just to finish up this point, I think I will be the Democrat who will be most effective in going up against a John McCain, or any other Republican -- because they all want basically a continuation of George Bush's policies -- because I will offer a clear contrast as somebody who never supported this war, thought it was a bad idea. I don't want to just end the war, but I want to end the mindset that got us into war in the first place.

That's the kind of leadership I'm going to provide as president of the United States. (my emphasis)

As I've said before, the war resolution was a big mistake on the part of Congress, maybe especially for the Democrats who voted for it.

Clinton was good on Thursday in giving a good defense of a vote that was bad because it politically enabled Cheney and Bush to launch the invasion of Iraq. She said that she was voting for it as an exercise in coercive diplomacy to pressure Iraq to admit inspectors. And that's a legitimate defense, as much as I think it was a mistake for her to vote for the resolution.

What I don't understand is why she and Edwards and others who voted for the resolution and are now against the Iraq War haven't been willing to say flat-out that Cheney and Bush violated that resolution when they invaded Iraq. It placed two conditions on the authorization for military action: it had to be the only feasible alternative for dealing with the (non-existent) weapons of mass destruction; and there had to be a clear showing of the (non-existent) connection between Saddam's regime and Bin Laden's Al Qa'ida group, including specifically a Saddam (non-existent) connection to the 9/11 attacks. Neither of the two conditions were met.

I could speculate on why she or others might not want to say that. But it would only be speculation. It really puzzles me why Clinton doesn't make the argument that way.

Clinton was good in making this point:

It will be important, however, that our nominee be able to present both a reasoned argument against continuing our presence in Iraq and the necessary credentials and gravitas for commander-in- chief. That has to cross that threshold in the mind of every American voter.

The Republicans will try to put either one of us into the same box that, if we oppose this president's Iraq policy, somehow we cannot fully represent the interests of the United States, be commander-in- chief. I reject that out of hand, and I actually welcome that debate with whomever they nominate. (my emphasis)

Given how unpopular the Iraq War is, in purely partisan terms the Democrats would be foolish not to insist on drawing that difference with the Republicans. But from the viewpoint of the peace movement, it's also critical that the Democrats commit themselves to withdrawal from Iraq during the Presidential campaign so they will be less tempted to backpedal under pressure from all those Very Serious foreign policy experts who will try to tell them they can't do it.

But Clinton or Obama at this point are both a long way away from addressing the challenges of moving the United States to a more realistic and sensible foreign policy overall. Understandably so, in that the changes that are needed are huge. A symptom of how far away from that they are is that they seem to be offering to escalate Bush's war in Afghanistan. That's way past being realistic. A more aggessive use of military force in the Battle of Tora Bora in early 2002 would have made a huge difference because it would have much more severely damaged the core Al Qa'ida organization and maybe have killed or captured Bin Laden, as well.

But the result of over six years of Cheney-Bush style war in Afghanistan is that the country has long since reverted back to the status of a failed state in which the distinction between local warlords, Islamic guerrillas and narcotrafficers is increasingly difficult to define. US and NATO nation-building in Afghanistan is over. The presence of NATO troops in a protracted war there, which is relying more and more on air power, is itself a very serious problem, though it has been basically pushed out of the political conversation by the disaster known as the Iraq War.

A failure to expedited American withdrawal from Iraq by any new Democratic President that takes office in January 2009 will wreck the opportunity for a Democratic and progessive resurgence and the chance to dramatically reorient US foreign policy to a more realistic long-term approach. An escalation in Afghanistan could well produce the same result.

And I can't think of a circumstance, not even a nuclear terrorist incident in a major US city, that would induce today's authoritarian Republican Party to ever display the kind of bipartisan support for a new Democratic President's foreign policy that Cheney and Bush enjoyed from the Democrats during their eight years of criminal misrule.

Tags: afghanistan war, bush administration, barack obama, bush doctrine, hillary clinton, iraq war