Coming Together On Iraq?
By Pejman Yousefzadeh Posted in Barack Obama | Iraq | National Consensus | War — Comments (6) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
I agree with a lot of people who laud Barack Obama for actually trying to engage in dialogue with those who disagree with him on policy issues. Would that more people were able to talk to the other side in so civilized a manner--perhaps certain portions of our national discourse would not be so utterly toxic.
At the same time, Michael O'Hanlon properly points out that this new tone does not seem to find its way to being included in Obama's rhetoric on Iraq.
Read on . . .
[Saddam Hussein] had used chemical weapons against his own defenseless people, as well as the armies of Iran; he violated 17 U.N. Security Council resolutions that demanded his verifiable disarmament; he had the blood of perhaps one million people on his hands; he transformed his country into what Iraqi dissident Kanan Makiya famously called the "republic of fear." (Saddam's behavior didn't improve when we tried the kind of high-level diplomacy Mr. Obama favors by sending envoys like Donald Rumsfeld and April Glaspie.)
Saddam's worst may have been behind him by 2003 -- but he was grooming his sadistic sons Uday and Qusay as successors with unknowable consequences. His WMD programs were in limbo, we now know. But before the war even German intelligence thought him only half a dozen years from a nuclear weapon.
Sanctions limited his funds for military programs, but the sanctions were eroding fast in the years before the invasion. Saddam's links to al Qaeda were overdramatized, but Saddam's own record of atrocities against his own people, Iranians and Kuwaitis, as well as his support for anti-Israeli terrorists, were heinous enough.
Yet Mr. Obama consistently accuses those who supported the war of political motivations -- and unsavory ones at that. On Dec. 27, for example, Mr. Obama said in Des Moines, Iowa, "You can't fall in line behind the conventional thinking on issues as profound as war and then offer yourself as the leader who is best prepared to chart a new and better course for America."
That echoed earlier comments, such as his Oct. 15 speech in Madison, Wis., in which, discussing Iraq, he criticized his opponents for succumbing to "triangulation and poll-driven politics." Within the Democratic Party, this message seems to work fairly well. But as a way to build national consensus -- or as proof of a new, more sincere and fair-minded brand of politics -- it falls short.
O'Hanlon is one of those who fits in easily with the "the Bush Administration displays an arrogant bunker mentality" crowd, so it is not as if he is some--oh, let's use the smear of the age--neoconservative shill for war. And he raises a good point. It is fine and good for Barack Obama to have the views he has on Iraq. No one begrudges him his opinion. But it would be nice if he acknowledged that people like O'Hanlon--and those affiliated with him--had a point in being concerned about Iraq. And it would be even nicer if he finally acknowledged that the surge is succeeding and that perhaps, just perhaps, talk of a swift withdrawal ought to be shunted to the side.
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Coming Together On Iraq? 6 Comments (0 topical, 6 editorial, 0 hidden) Post a comment »
I don't care how conciliatory a candidate wants to be, he can't simply just cede the points to the opposition.
I would put huge money on Obama tacking back to the middle after getting the nomination.
Dan,
Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz, and Karl Rove are universally despised by Democrats. Heck they aren't liked much by a lot of Republicans. They also are all former members of the Administration. It's always easier trashing the dead guys.
There are those who look at things the way they are, and ask why ... I dream of things that never were and ask why not. - Robert Kennedy
Oh, I would put money on it, too. I always would have, whoever the nominee ended up being, because they had to. It takes a lot of hard left noise and a lot of point-not-conceding to get the nomination of the current Dem party. And while it may be a bridge too far to get back to being nationally viable after that, those are the cards they're dealt by this electorate.
That said, and the apparent Democrat rules of partisan battle notwithstanding, there are facts that any candidate refuses to concede at his own peril, and the obvious success of the surge may have already become one. There are articles about how all the Dem candidates are denying obvious truth about it in no less than 3 major papers this week - the NYT, the WP, and the WSJ.
In keeping with what I said in the 1st paragraph, I'm sure any eventual nominee was planning to concede the point right after Super Tuesday, as soon as s/he was safely past the Dem roots and had the nomination. But the cat may be coming out of the bag a little too early. All 3 articles have extensive quotes from the Dem big 3 that they'll have to eat eventually, and the GOP ads will write themselves.
Iraq is simply not a driving issue right now. The one thing that the relative success of the Surge has done is put Iraq out of the minds of a lot of Americans.
I saw a poll last week where 60% of Republicans want us out of Iraq within 6 months.
Agreeing on the Surge or disagreeing isn't going make much difference.
There are those who look at things the way they are, and ask why ... I dream of things that never were and ask why not. - Robert Kennedy
It won't need to be all that driving an issue. Driving or not, an ad that says "Democrat x said y about the surge in the debates. Do you *believe* y? Do you believe anyone who claims to actually believe y can be trusted on ANYTHING, let alone American security?" will draw blood. Especially if y = "never mind what you see with your own eyes and what every paper and pundit in the world says, the surge still failed, and America still lost in Iraq".
Now, as I said, s/he will most likely concede the point AFTER winning the primary; And the ad will STILL run, with the corrolary that candidate x also ate his/her words as soon as s/he got the Dem nod.
You're entitled to your own opinions, but not your own facts. And when a successful surge becomes an indisputable fact rather than an opinion, you got a problem, as that Democrat legislator so candidly said several months back.
Here's a quote which he immediately backed off for obvious detrimental reasons;
"The war should have never been authorized, and should have never been waged, and on which we've now spent $400 billion, and have seen over 3,000 lives of the bravest young Americans wasted.''
Wasted? In numerous conversations with military family members, I have never heard that term used. But then again, I never spoke with Cindy Sheehan.
I always like to believe there is much more existential truth before the "record" is corrected.
"Nec Aspera Terrent"
bene ambula et redambula
Contributor to The Minority Report
New Tone? I think not.
"No compromise with the main purpose, no peace till victory, no pact with unrepentant wrong." - Winston Churchill