Iraq and '08 Campaign Posted by Michael Cohen

Today in the Washington Post, Peter Beinart makes the rather bold assertion that Iraq is quickly becoming a non-story in the Presidential election. Focusing on last month's Democratic debate in Las Vegas, he says:

The candidates mentioned the war, to be sure. But it never took center stage. And with the first primaries just weeks away, that's become the norm: Iraq wasn't a major focus at last week's Republican YouTube debate either. In the biggest surprise of the campaign so far, the election that almost everyone thought would be about Iraq is turning out not to be.

Beinart claims this is happening because "not as many people are dying" in Iraq. I'm sure there is some truth to this assertion, but it seems to me that the main reason candidates aren't talking about Iraq is because in the Democratic and Republican primaries it's pretty clear where the major candidates stand. Republicans want to keep troops in Iraq and Democrats want to bring them home. The divide between the two parties couldn't be clearer -- and at the same time the similar views in the parties is also pretty obvious. Now that Barack Obama has made the tactical decision to stop attacking Hillary Clinton for her vote authorizing the war I'm not sure what else there is for Democratic candidates to say about Iraq that isn't already known - they oppose the war, we get it! As for the Republicans, there is striking uniformity as well.

But the notion that the Iraq war will be a non-story once the two parties settle on a candidate seems pretty far-fetched. If the GOP candidate continues to support keeping troops in Iraq at present levels, does Beinart really think that the Democratic candidate will not remind voters of this fact? With more than 60% of the American people opposed to war that would be some pretty lousy politics. Indeed, I imagine it will be the centerpiece of his or her campaign. We may be getting a temporary respite from talk on the campaign trail about the war, but I, for one, would be pretty shocked if Beinart is right and Iraq is a "non-story" in the general election.

 

Comments

[Peace]

This shows how arrogant and isolated Peter Beinart and the mainstream of the foreign policy establishment is from the rest of the nation. It is arrogant to believe that the surges "success," will continue without a political settlement in Iraq. Also large percetnage of Americans disapprove the war for the lives already lost in the Iraq War.

[Dan Kervick]

I think the Iraq issue has lost some of its spark because millions of Democratic voters have basically given up on their party where foreign policy is concerned. There was some hope and energy back in 2006, when it seemed possible that Democratic victories in 2006 and 2008 would make a substantial difference to US foreign policy, particularly in the Middle East. But it's become abundantly clear since then that the established foreign policy elites, with their precious bi-partisan consensus, have such a tight lock on the country's foreign policy that there is not much point in bootlessly pining for substantive change.

The extreme Bush foreign policy has run out of steam, and any Republican who is elected - save perhaps Giuliani - will likely pursue a Rice-style foreign policy. Similarly, a Democratic president will probably pursue a Clinton-style foreign policy. And aside from some puffed-up election year rhetoric for the respective party bases, there is not really much difference between these approaches. The country will return to the same doomed and corrupt business as usual.

So it really doesn't matter much what we think. If the Democrats win, the country's foreign policy is going to continue to be lead by the likes of Rand Beers, Michael O'Hanlon, Madelieine Albright, Richard Holbrooke, Martin Indyk and few dozen pseudo-intellectual speechwriters and technocrats from Yale, Harvard, Stanford, Johns Hopkins and Columbia. The likely Republican team is little different. No matter what the Republicans say when they are preaching to the wingnuts, they are going to gradually draw down troops in Iraq, and settle into a permanent occupation and military presence in the country. Democrats will do the same. The only remaining differences are stylistic, symbolic and rhetorical. The have to do mainly with pacing and presentation, not end results.

I'm likely to change my party affiliation following this election, although to which party I don't know. Maybe I'll invent my own party of one - who knows? But I find myself increasingly unable to identify with the Democratic Party in any consistent or engaged way. It's a bummer, because I've voted for Democrats for 30 years. But socially, philosophically and temperamentally I just don't feel like Democrat anymore. The party establishment now stands squarely for the cornerstones of classical nation-state liberalism: addictive consumption, hedonistic individualism, unrestrained capital accumulation, corporate control of society, philosophical and spiritual vapidity, and most importantly military empire, the latter being the indispensable engine of acquisition and exploitation needed to feed the insatiable needs of the debased modern jello-brained consumer. I know lots of individual Democrats who do not match this description, and have a bit more heft and vision. But they are never able to achieve any power, and their influence appears to decline with each passing year.

I'm also going to try to figure out a way to work intellectually to help create a new movement that will some day destroy this rot. But change is not going to happen through the decadent institutions of American electoral politics. One thing I'm now seeing a need to work for is constitutional reform. Our system is totally crazy, something that only the nutty religious cult of Founder Worship keeps everyone from recognizing. The system seems purposefully designed to resist innovation and experimentation, block progressive legislation, promote mediocrity and over time shift most government functions to an oligarchic executive branch bureaucracy.

Well, have a good election everyone. And enjoy World War III.

[Don Bacon]

One of Dan's better posts, and he's written some good ones. The first time I visited this site and read Dan's post I responded: This man's a genius--he writes exactly what I think. Okay, it was a bit self-serving, but what I meant was that he can express so much better than I can what is right, in a Jeffersonian sense. Remember Thomas Jefferson? I know how Dan feels about founder worship, but, hey, this is Jefferson.

Jefferson had little faith in presidents and their cabinets. He was no great fan of the Congress. What he believed in were the ideals of the America experiment. He was proud to have shaped the documents that defined those ideals. And he wanted his legacy to be that not of a holder of office, but of a champion of the revolutionary promise of liberation from the tyranny of warrior kings and their oppressions.

One of Jefferson's jottings: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. --That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

Pay attention, class, this is important. The time is ripe for a third party candidate who talks sense and represents the people. We need to find such a candidate. Dan, you lead and I'll follow.

[Dan Kervick]

Thanks for the support Don. It makes me feel less alone.

[Mike M.]

It's not a debate in congress and I think that's spilled over into the presidential campaign. I hope this doesn't mean that the electorate at large has accepted that we're stuck with Iraq, but I suspect that's the case. At least people seem more vigilant about keeping this from ever happening again, hence the failure of saber rattling against Iran (and even some help from the intelligence communities for once).

[Zathras]

Back on the 25th of last month I posted here about how this was the direction public discussion of Iraq was taking, and I'm not surprised that commentators (especially commentators required to produce columns of a specific length on deadline) are jumping to the conclusion that Iraq will be less of an issue in 2008 than had appeared likely six months ago.

That's a jump I wouldn't make. However, the fact is that the leading Democratic candidates did not get where they are through their achievements in the field of foreign policy. Televised images of chaos and disaster in Iraq give them a hook on which to hang denunciations of an unpopular administration policy, but without such images Sens. Clinton and Obama would just as soon talk about health care and children. I doubt they'll be able to do that through next November, but I'm sure they would if they had a choice.

[Jack Schwager]

I share Dan's long-lived frustration with the Democratic party and its unwillingness for the most part to take short-term political risks that could add so much to their long-term viability.

On the other hand, it's important to acknowledge that the party's failure to produce a messaiah is neither the core of the problem for liberals in America, nor any key to the solution.

The problem has several aspects, but the most prominent is the growing role of consumer and sports/entertainment culture in shaping American society.

Given that so many Americans have come to frame geopolitical conflict as a kind of ultimate test of prowess, an action movie about an armed SuperBowl, if you will, the liberal idea of patient incremental diplomacy is an extremely hard sell.

Note that I'm not suggesting that many Americans literally think war is a game. They understand that real lives are at stake and, even, the future of civilization. But the lowest common denominator American does frame war and geopolitical conflict as a contest. This is why, for example, the absurd allegation that Democrats are "defeatists" because they recommend withdrawal from Iraq has such resonance.

Democracy isn't very good at solving these kinds of problems. By that I mean we can't expect our elected representatives to throw themselves en masse against these entrenched cultural patterns.

Supporters of American diplomacy and reason as alternatives to aggression and denial are far better off focusing on building a movement that efficiently interfaces with party politics, but which is independent of it.

At the moment, the Democratic party has no institutional basis. Labor unions are the closest thing to it, but they represent less than 10 percent of the American workforce and are not 100 percent loyal to the party. Trial lawyers, public education and Afro-Americans are also key constituencies, but don't really form the kind of loyal, efficient-voting and propagandizing base the Republicans have in the Christian right and the military industrial complex.

[luxury watches]

I am so with you,rolex watch
luxury watch