It would be difficult to exaggerate my profound lack of confidence, let alone faith, in the political system of this or any other country to make your life or mine better. I’m with Thomas Jefferson, who once put it something like this: If I have no choice but to be in a political party to get to heaven, I’d just as soon pass. Fortunately, I also believe profoundly that political parties have about as much to do with getting to heaven as spinning in a circle has to do with getting to Cleveland. Politicians are congenital liars whose promises any person of a few moments’ experience in the real world discounts. In fact, it is often wise to assume that the opposite is true. Remember George Bush telling us he didn’t believe in nation-building in 2000?
(All right, it turns out that maybe he didn’t, given what he’s been up to in Iraq. At the very least he seems not to have had a scintilla of understanding about what it takes, but that hasn’t prevented him from talking about it incessantly now that he is in power. Maybe, like Clinton, he believes that simply talking about it and declaring good intentions is the moral equivalent of actually accomplishing something.)
All that is a necessary prelude to a discussion of the possibility that on the issue of this misbegotten war in Iraq, there is just an outside chance that we might get something remotely constructive from the current political contest. Newsweek and several other outlets have suggested that Democratic nominee John Kerry plans to make criticism of George Bush’s conduct of the war the central and repeated theme of his campaign between now and November. Word is that Joe Lockhart and other Clintonites taken on in the wake of Kerry’s disappointing – all right, disastrous – last month or so, when he got no bounce from the Democratic convention, met the Swifties, saw Bush get a bounce from the GOP show and was hurt by Dan Rather’s stupid overeagerness have told him that focusing on Iraq is his best, and perhaps his only, chance to beat Dubya.
Whether it works or not, at least there’s a chance the American people will get something remotely resembling an actual debate on the overarching issue of the moment. It had looked as if the two major candidates would have indistinguishable positions on the war and voters would be reduced to trying to figure out which of these two clowns would do the least damage, based on half-credible stories about how dishonorably they had behaved 35 years ago.
Risky Business
To be sure, there is risk involved in Kerry’s new approach – and serious doubt about whether he can pull it off. Most polls show that Bush comes off better on assessments of ability as a war leader, seriousness about waging the war on terrorism, steadiness in crisis, consistency and credibility. It is somewhat unfair – but hardly entirely so – to say, as Republicans have and do, that Kerry has had shifting positions on the war depending on circumstances and the opposition of the moment.
However, Kerry has something of a reputation as closer in political races when it’s time to get serious about winning; he was behind William Weld, then a popular former Massachusetts governor, in 1996, and pulled it out. Most people believe a key to beating Weld was his skill as a debater, and the two parties have agreed to three debates (excluding minor-party candidates, of course; it wouldn’t do to be shown up by people who were never in Skull and Bones and don’t stand a chance so long as they continue to be ignored or derided).
Basing a campaign on criticizing Bush’s handling of the war also has the merit that there’s a great deal there to criticize, quite validly so. As many of us have been pointing out for a couple of years, almost all of the justifications for the war have turned out to be based on misconceptions, miscalculations, ignorance, unreliable intelligence and outright lies – and plenty of people in and out of the government tried to point out the problems before the decision to go to war was made.
Even if all the fantasies about nukes, other weapons, and even ties to al Qaeda had been true, the vile regime Saddam presided over still didn’t pose anything resembling an imminent threat to the Sole Superpower. Bush took us into a war of choice, not necessity, sending brave young men and women to fight a preventive war (http://www.antiwar.com/bock/b091002.html) – based on the possibility that a real threat might develop someday and unsanctioned by international law or just war theory – rather than the preemptive war even many war critics still call it.
Finally, as events are increasingly demonstrating, and a number of subsequent official reports have made clear, the Bushies literally had no Plan B when things started to go sour. They believed their own propaganda about cakewalks and cheering Iraqis eager to strew flowers and embrace instant democracy.
Not a Bad Start
Whether he can sustain the effort or not, Mr. Kerry has actually made a pretty good start. He began last week, as I noted then, at the National Guard Association, with a straightforward and generally accurate critique of Bush’s conduct of the war, to wit:
"He did not tell you that with each passing day, we’re seeing more chaos, more violence, more indiscriminate killings. He did not tell you that with each passing week, our enemies are getting bolder – that Pentagon officials report that entire regions of Iraq are now in the hands of terrorists and extremists. He did not tell you that with each passing month, stability and security seem farther and farther away.”
The news stories I read or saw suggested that the speech was not received especially warmly by the National Guard crowd, although there are plenty of National Guard grunts who are profoundly disturbed about the role they have been forced to play in this war. People who go to national conventions, of course, are often not the people who are actually likely to be called up, but there must have been people there with serious reservations about the wisdom of Bush’s decisions or his callous use of the National Guard to compensate for the administration’s lack of serious planning.
Perhaps Kerry, being reasonably human, had second thoughts when he got a lukewarm reception in Las Vegas. Politicians generally prefer reliable applause lines to serious discussions or challenging their audiences. It might not have been shocking if he had reconsidered the strategy in the wake of the National Guard speech. But this week he continued in the same vein and actually got a little stronger.
Continuing the Attack
Kerry’s speech Monday at New York University was actually rather effective, especially with the crowd assembled that day. Whether it will resonate more widely is yet to be seen.
Few news stories featured lengthy excerpts from the speech, of course, and my impression is that the TV news excerpts (as they usually do) picked the least interesting or significant lines to use as sound bites that night. So it seems worthwhile to offer some fairly extended excerpts. We report, you decide:
"[W]e must have a great and honest debate on Iraq.
"The president claims it is the centerpiece of his war on terror. In fact, Iraq was a profound diversion from that war and the battle against our greatest enemy.
"Iraq was a profound diversion from that war and from our greatest enemy, Osama bin Laden and the terrorists.
"Invading Iraq has created a crisis of historic proportions and if we do not change course, there is the prospect of a war with no end in sight. . . ."
After words of tribute for American troops, Kerry continued:
"In June the president declared, ‘The Iraqi people have their country back.’ And just last week he told us, ‘This country is headed toward democracy; freedom is on the march.’ But the administration’s own official intelligence estimate, given to the president last July, tells a very different story.
"According to press reports, the intelligence estimate totally contradicts what the president is saying and so do the facts on the ground. Security is deteriorating for us and the Iraqis. Forty-two Americans died in Iraq in June, the month before the handover. But 54 died in July, 66 in August and already 54 halfway through September. And more than 1,100 Americans were wounded in August; more than in any month since the invasion.
"We are fighting a growing insurgency in an ever-widening war zone. In March, insurgents attacked our forces 700 times. In August, they attacked 2,700 times; a 400 percent increase.
"Fallujah, Ramadi, Samarra and parts of Iraq are now no-go zones, breeding grounds for terrorists, who are free to plot and to launch attacks against our soldiers.
"The radical Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, who is accused of complicity in the murder of Americans, holds more sway in suburbs of Baghdad than the prime minister.
"Violence against Iraqis, from bombings to kidnappings to intimidation, is on the rise.
"Basic living conditions are also deteriorating.
"Yes, there has been some progress. Thanks to the extraordinary efforts of our soldiers and civilians in Iraq, schools, shops and hospitals have been opened in certain places. In parts of Iraq, normalcy actually prevails.
"But most Iraqis have lost faith in our ability to be able to deliver meaningful improvements to their lives. So they’re sitting on the fence, instead of siding with us against the insurgents.
"That is the truth, the truth that the commander in chief owes to our troops and to the American people."
President Bush, responding to this speech in New Hampshire, ignored all of this. He picked up on one statement from Mr. Kerry:
"Saddam Hussein was a brutal dictator who deserves his own special place in Hell. But that was not – that was not, in and of itself, a reason to go to war.
"The satisfaction that we take in his downfall does not hide this fact: We have traded a dictator for a chaos that has left America less secure."
Bush interpreted the statement thus: "He’s saying he prefers the stability of a dictatorship to the hope and security of democracy." Clever, but acknowledging that the United States can’t take every dictator in the world is not quite the same as preferring dictators.
Bush went on: "He apparently woke up this morning and has now decided, no, we should not have invaded Iraq, after just last month saying he would have voted for force even knowing everything we know today."
That statement of Kerry’s deserves a little clarification, although in the heat of a political campaign the clarification probably won’t stick. What Kerry actually said with the Grand Canyon in the background, after the president challenged him repeatedly as to whether he believed in the vote Congress took, was that (as he put it again in his speech Monday), "Congress was right to give the president the authority to use force to hold Saddam Hussein accountable."
Now I happen to disagree even with that. We knew enough then about serious questions as to whether Saddam had WMD and a relationship with al-Qaeda or 9/11 to be pretty sure the administration was blowing smoke about the tremendous threat posed by Saddam Hussein. It is dangerous to American liberties to give a president what amounted to – and was used as – a blank check to use force at his discretion. Congress should have demanded more reliable information and reminded the president that the U.S. Constitution gives Congress the sole authority to declare war.
However, it is technically true that in that resolution Congress gave the president authority to use force if necessary, something a little short of declaring war. I think Kerry and others were fooling themselves if they thought Bush would use that authority with wisdom and discretion; it was clear to many of us that he was determined to wage this war whatever the evidence. But it is remotely possible that they actually believed he would see war only as a last resort, after diplomacy and UN weapons inspections had genuinely been tried to the fullest.
In his speech Monday Kerry had Bush down fairly well:
"The first and most fundamental mistake was the president’s failure to tell the truth to the American people.
"He failed to tell the truth about the rationale for going to war, and he failed to tell the truth about the burden this war would impose on our soldiers and our citizens.
"By one count, the president offered 23 different rationales for this war. If his purpose was to confuse and mislead the American people, he succeeded.
"His two main rationales, weapons of mass destruction and the al-Qaeda Sept. 11 connection, have both been proved false by the president’s own weapons inspectors and by the 9/11 commission.
"And just last week, Secretary of State Powell acknowledged those facts. Only Vice President Cheney still insists that the Earth is flat."
Now John Kerry is a politician, and a politician with an unfortunate record of having made statements about Iraq that differed according to circumstances. When he was running against Howard Dean, he took advantage of an unwise comment by Dean to say, "those who believe we are not safer with [Saddam Hussein’s] capture don’t have the judgment to be president." Later he told Tim Russert: "I think the judgment of a nominee who doesn’t understand that having Saddam Hussein captured will make it extraordinarily difficult to beat an incumbent wartime president who captured Saddam Hussein. And let me tell you why," whereupon he went through the whole litany the Bushies have used – WMDs against his own people, trying to assassinate Bush 41, so capable of miscalculation he brought this war on himself, etc., etc.
In July 2002 Kerry told the Democratic Leadership Council, "I agree completely with this administration’s goal of a regime change in Iraq."
So John Kerry is hardly the perfect antiwar champion, and his proposals for cleaning up the mess in Iraq – refocus on security, get NATO to train Iraqi soldiers and police, get more foreign assistance, plan for an accelerated withdrawal (at least within four years) – are not especially inspiring nor are they all that likely to work. Kerry shows many of the earmarks of a committed internationalist who believes the United States has a mission to improve the world. His major difference with Bush is still that he would rather have more foreign support and a blessing from the UN when he embarks on a crusade.
But whether through desperation or calculation, he has vowed to make the rest of the presidential campaign a great debate on the Iraq war. His opening shots have been effective, at least in terms of raising many of the right issues.
Whether he maintains this stance through Nov. 2 or abandons it if the polling data suggest it isn’t showing results quickly enough, more principled antiwar Americans should take advantage of the opening he has created to make the debate broader and bolder – including challenging the apparent bipartisan consensus that the United should be intervening in and stationing troops all over the world, and trying to remake countries that displease us. That is a formula for virtually perpetual war, and Mr. Kerry may help to create an atmosphere in which those of us who believe it get something resembling a serious hearing as well.
Let’s take advantage of it.
