What Shift? Posted by Ilan Goldenberg

With all do respect to Shawn, I have to agree with Kevin Drum.  There really hasn't been a major shift in tones.  The Democrats and critics of the war have always made political progress the number one issue.   The argument all summer over the benchmarks ultimately revolved around political progress.  There has been no shift in tone.

Also, I'm not sure if I was the NY Times I'd be going to Mike O'Hanlon for political strategy. 

“The politics of Iraq are going to change dramatically in the general election, assuming Iraq continues to show some hopefulness,” said Michael E. O’Hanlon, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution who is a supporter of Mrs. Clinton’s and a proponent of the military buildup. “If Iraq looks at least partly salvageable, it will be important to explain as a candidate how you would salvage it — how you would get our troops out and not lose the war. The Democrats need to be very careful with what they say and not hem themselves in.”

Really?  Because despite the drop in violence, all the polls show that opposition to the war is at an all time high at almost 70%.  So, which audience, outside of the Washington DC think tank circuit, is Mike O'Hanlon trying to appeal to?  This is exactly the kind of mealy mouthed middle of the road strategy that Democrats tried in 2002 and 2004 on national security when they were too afraid to just stand up and offer a real alternative. 

I have said this many times before.  Democrats can be strong competent stewards of national security without having to support the horribly misguided policies of the Bush Administration.  They don't need strategic drift.  Just a clear alternative that emphasizes some combination of rebuilding our stretched armed forces, going after Al Qaeda central in Pakistan/Afghanistan, energy security, nuclear terrorism and homeland security.  All issues that have been badly bungled and do in fact impact America's security.  What Democrats don't need to do is start vacillating on the war in Iraq.  That's bad politics and bad policy.

Comments

[Zathras]

Perhaps use of the word "tone" might have been unwise, but I don't think the NYT article was far off base.

Both the Bush administration and the war's critics have a paper trail to support the idea that they have always thought the core issue was political progress in Iraq. Both the Bush administration and the war's critics also know that for the American public the core issue is the level of American casualties, as well as the overall level of violence, in Iraq. If American casualties are down and stay down, and the overall level of violence is down and stays down, the intensity of public feeling about the war should be expected to decline, even if large majorities continue to feel the war was a bad idea.

This will lead Democratic Presidential candidates, and some of the Republicans as well, to want to talk about other issues on the campaign trail -- something that the Democrats would prefer to do anyway. It isn't necessarily fear that if political progress in Iraq follows the reduction in violence Democrats will be ruined politically. I'd agree here that people whose view of American interests abroad has been wholly focused on the future of this one, mid-sized Arab country for the last five years are not necessarily the best judges of public opinion in this country.

Most Americans would be very upset if after all this time Iraq became a base for international terrorism. Otherwise their level of interest in how that country governs itself is low. If the costs of maintaining the American commitment there appears also to be low, their tolerance for that commitment -- again, this is not the same as support for it -- will increase, and their greatest interest will be absorbed by other subjects like health care, immigration and taxes.

From my standpoint, of course, the major Democratic candidates have always vacillated on Iraq, because from my point of view the costs of maintaining the American commitment there are not only not low, they are unsustainable. In the long run, public opinion here will come around to that view; a Democratic candidate might be best off taking some of the criticism his party is said to fear now and hold to that position in the hope of being met next year by the American people. But public opinion may not evolve on that schedule, and in the meantime it is no good pretending that the short term politics are other than what they are. It is the short term that Democratic Presidential candidates will probably respond to.

[Don Bacon]

I agree with Ilan that the Dems need a clear national security strategy. It's still nearly a year to the general election, perhaps they might come up with one. That would be an improvement over what we have now, the too-typical gotcha politics which passes for national discourse and debate.

Just a clear alternative that emphasizes some combination of rebuilding our stretched armed forces, going after Al Qaeda central in Pakistan/Afghanistan, energy security, nuclear terrorism and homeland security.

What that alternative strategy might be should be open to intelligent debate. Let's start with Ilan. I don't believe his "alternative" is much of an alternative. It sounds like more of the "war on terror" which has been proven to be an ineffective waste of resources, with its reliance on conventional forces. What's needed is improved intelligence and police work (which would have stopped 9/11). Of course the military will be rebuilt and expanded under either the Dems or the Repubs, so that's no alternative. The ineffective occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq will be continued, no alternative there. Invading Pakistan? A really bad idea. Homeland security? We've had a six year national emergency, threat level "elevated", with stepped-up eavesdropping, border surveillance, torture and loss of habeus corpus. What else could be done? I don't want to know.

Here's an alternative national security policy that would make us more secure, not less: The bogus "war on terror" should be scrapped because it is increasing world animosity (particularly Muslim) toward the US and concomitantly increasing the likelihood of terrorism. Case in point--Iraq. We should reduce the resources going to the military and use them for improved health care, mass transportation and alternative energy sources which reduce reliance on petroleum.

[Dan Kervick]

I agree with Zathras that what Americans care most about in Iraq is casualties. But Americans also care about money, and Democrats should start talking more about the war's price tag. For an amount equal to the total expected cost of this inane war - estimated quite conservatively at 500 billion dollars - we could have done any one of the following:

1. Purchased about a year's supply of petroleum for the entire US;

2. Bought a laptop for each human being in Africa;

3. Paid off the entire foreign debt of Africa twice over;

4. Increased the total global foreign aid to Africa in 2007 by a factor of 15 to 20.

5. Built 50 to 100 additional Nimitz class aircraft carriers;

6. Constructed about 50,000 public schools;

7. Purchased 10,000 communications satellites;

8. Purchased 4000 ridiculously expensive F-22 Raptors, more than 20 times the projected fleet size;

9. Paid for all prescription drug purchases in the US for two years;

10. Installed about 25 million residential wind turbines;

11. Purchased a 500 year supply of Viagra for all American males;

12. Given four M-16 assault rifles to each man, woman and child in the United States;

13. Paid the annual salary for every law enforcement officer in the United States for ten years;

14. Given 175 million dollars to each family of a September 11 victim;

15. Purchased one year of the entire GNP of India or Australia;

16. Met the total US Social Security obligation for one year;

17. Made a one-time payment of $12,500 to each American over 65;

18. Deposited $117,000 in an individual bank account for each baby born in America in 2007;

19. Paid for two mammograms per year for each adult American woman for 15 years;

20. Made the mortgage payments for all American home mortgage holders for a year.

[blgphd]

The previous comment makes one good point- reducing our reliance on oil is important and has never been part of the Bush/Chaney energy policy much less their security policy. However, nowhere does Ilan argue that homeland security is the same thing as that defined by Don, or Bush, or the Republican candidates -the War in Iraq, the "bogus war on terror" with spying on Americans, torture or the elimination of civil rights and Habeus corpus - has never made us safer and is not the homeland security policy that the Dems or the American people need. Homeland Security does include a strong intelligence community and military which the administration actually listens to rather then cooking the intelligence and firing the generals who do not agree with them.

[Don Bacon]

. . .and military which the administration actually listens to

Code words for: The next time the US illegally invades a country, send more troops. I'm afraid that's the reality no matter which of the two look-alike parties grabs power. With a rebuilt and expanded military it's not so much a question of IF, but WHERE. Ilan goes with Pakistan (and Afghanistan), apparently.

[Ilan Goldenberg]

"Code words for: The next time the US illegally invades a country, send more troops. I'm afraid that's the reality no matter which of the two look-alike parties grabs power."

Don, listening to the military is code for they are absolutely opposed to attacking Iran and have been arguing for large troop reductions in Iraq for over a year now.

And after reading this blog for as long and carefully as you have, do you really think I would promote an invasion of Pakistan? Perhaps targeted strikes against Al Qaeda and Taliban elements. But an invasion? Really?