Jim Leach's Up Posted by Suzanne Nossel

Congressman Jim Leach (R-Iowa) is up now.  There are not many Republicans who would come to address a gathering like this one.  He's talking about action and reaction - when we talk about crusades, axes of evil and shock and awe should we not expect others to react commensurately. 

He's making the pt that you cannot understand events without looking at them through many different eyes (this insight was the premise of my husband's book, Nixon's Shadow, which looked at Nixon through the eyes of various groups - the press, his Orange County base, historians, etc.). 

Now he's onto the nub issue:  whither American exceptionalism post-Bush?  Oops, he just called that a digression but I sure hope he digresses back to it.

He's calling for a visit by a Presidential Envoy to N. Korea - the message should be an approach designed to elicit a negotiating commitment to achieve a peace treaty and an attitudinal change.  A peace conference would be convened, followed by a resumption of the 6-party talks.  As the strong party, he's saying we need to be generous in dealing with lesser power.  We need to loosen preconditions, including for Iran in that our current position requires complete capitulation as a precondition for opening talks.

He says Washington is underestimating the following WRT Iran:  1) Hizbollah which is more powerful/effective than al Qaeda; 2) The fact that a military strike would not necessarily block them from gaining a nuclear weapon, either by creating, stealing or buying it.

Now he's onto the War Powers Act (I am not sure I quite see the unifying thread here, other than a string of critiques of Administration policy).  He's saying there's a theory of the War Powers Act that expands rather than constrains (through Congressional oversight) executive power, in that the President can act before the deadline for a Congressional resolution.  He's saying the Iranians ought bear this in mind (OK, there is a thread).  He's pointing out that just 1 person makes decisions that affect everyone (nothing new here).

Now Iraq.  He's asking why we've remained now that Iraq has a democracy?  Yet if we argue for leaving, the Admin will say we've forced them out.  He's asking what if there's a tipping pt where our troop presence becomes destabilizing, and that maybe we've passed it.  Can't we use their democracy as grounds to get out.  This kinda smacks of decent interval, in that an Iraq incapable of appointing an Interior or Security Minister won't hold together for long.  "But its a democracy right now!" we would proclaim and hightail out of there.  Not much of a figleaf.  Doubt it works politically.  Maybe better own up to the idea that, if we believe it, our presence is no longer helping.

Now global health.  The usual mantra about how we neglect it and issues like AIDS warrant greater priority.

Realism - meaning unilateralism - is unrealistic and unAmerican.  Uh huh.

Many fine points, but the most notable thing here remains the "R" in Jim Leach R-Iowa.  And even that's less surprising than it would have been a couple of years ago.

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