Friday, January 18, 2008
Hoping to lose redux
Mort Kondracke, writing in Roll Call, charges the Democrats with refusing to acknowledge progress in Iraq:
It's not victory. Political progress is slow. But Iraq is heading in the right direction. U.S. forces might have to stay for 10 years more -- but, eventually, as peacekeepers, not combatants, as in Korea and Kosovo. Instead of suffering a huge strategic loss, the United States would have shown it has tenacity, altering its image in the world.
Democrats, however, insist on minimizing the success and advocating early timetables for full withdrawal of U.S. combat forces.
The Democratic line now is that it was to be expected that adding American troops would have a military impact -- not that they argued that a year ago -- but that political progress won't occur until the U.S. announces definitively that it's leaving.
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) is sticking by her offensive comment last September that she would have to "suspend disbelief" to accept Gen. David Petraeus' assessment that progress was being made.
And Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) maintains that the Democratic Congressional victory of 2006 -- and the prospect of U.S. withdrawals -- was responsible for the Sunni awakening, when in fact it started earlier. In a conference call last weekend, Obama foreign policy adviser Susan Rice could cite no evidence to back up his assertion.
If I were running as a Democrat hoping to win the general election, my line for the last couple of years would have been "I fervently hope that we will crush al Qaeda, neutralize the Iraqi insurgency, stabilize Iraq politically, reach an accomodation with the people of Iraq that is friendly and peaceful, and prevent Iran from having so much influence in that country that it makes the other Gulf states feel insecure. I fear, however, that the chances of that happening are low compared to the cost of persisting."
The leading Democrats do not say this, however, because too many on the Democratic left -- the activists who raise money and vote in primaries -- do not even hope that we will win. They fear that if we do we will draw a "lesson" from even apparent victory -- that the United States can fight a successful developing world counterinsurgency -- that they thought had been discredited once and for all in Vietnam.
Now, I realize that this accusation opens me up to the charge that I am "smearing" the left when I claim that they do not want to win. Well, one year ago today in the wake of President Bush's announcement of the surge, a national survey revealed that fully one-third of Democrats wanted the surge to fail. My suspicion is that if the survey had distinguished active Democrats from self-identified Democrats the percentage supporting defeat would have been much greater. That, therefore, is the challenge for the Democratic candidates. They cannot even express hope for victory without offending their base.
10 Comments:
By 
Georg Felis, at
Fri Jan 18, 08:25:00 AM:
You might need to break your statement down a bit. The *far* left wants us to lose, because they fear a victory would make Bush look good (Zero-sum game). Certain isolationist factions in the Left (and even the far-right and Libertarians) want us to lose because it would validate the Bush Doctrine. I would say most of the left have just lost interest in this war, and want it to go away right now and do not care how.
Unfortunately for them, war is not like TV, and the President cannot simply change the channel.
By urthshu, at
Fri Jan 18, 08:32:00 AM:
but, eventually, as peacekeepers, not combatants, as in Korea and Kosovo
I wonder about this received bit of common wisdom. Why would any US soldiers need to be in Iraq as peacekeepers? It seems to me that Korea and Kosovo, with inimical States across nearby borders, need peacekeepers, but Iraq is not necessarily in the same situation.
Certainly, it would be politically hard to argue that peacekeepers were needed for terrorism [which security against should, properly, be taken over by the Iraqi military/police at some future date]. That would leave - as a justification for longer-term peacekeepers - Iran and Syria, neither of which have declared hostilities towards Iraq. In fact, it could be plausibly argued that leaving peacekeepers in absence of an obvious threat to Iraq would be provocative towards them.
Speaking to the topic:
In order to capture undecideds and centrists, the Dems will have to acknowledge some progress. I think we'll see the Dem candidate suddenly become patriotic about 2-3 months prior to the general election, floating the new tack before VFW halls at first to test it out. They're quite good at pandering in this way because they divvy people into blocs by identity, after all.
Right now they're just going for the low-hanging fruit.
By kreiz1, at
Fri Jan 18, 10:50:00 AM:
Great post, TH. Bottom-line- as long as our casualties are low/zero, Americans are much more tolerant of any military engagement. However, there's a legitimate secondary question regarding the War's cost- simply, is an extended Korean-like presence in Iraq worth it, both as a regional and broader international matter? It's a legitimate question that should be getting much more discussion.
By 
, at
Fri Jan 18, 01:17:00 PM:
People of all political stripes ignore reality when it conflicts with their "world narratives" and bully opponents or neturals into a particular course of action. As somebody on the right, I think the left does it more often (think Vietnam and Tet, support of high taxes, speech codes).
By , at
Fri Jan 18, 01:20:00 PM:
Kreiz1 raises the issue that baffles me: "the war's cost." As a percent of GDP, our entire defense budget remains below average for PEACETIME post WWII years. Unless you or your loved one has served in Iraq, this war has cost you nothing. It has been fought on the cheap, which is the main reason success was so long in coming. Why do people continue to whine about this war's cost, and sport those moronic pie chart bumper stickers? And why does this misinformation continue to go unchallenged?
By OldSarg, at
Fri Jan 18, 11:06:00 PM:
If only they would come out an say that they want equality and freedom for the peoples of Iraq or even America. They won't because that is not why they want office. They want the office to be in-charge. It seems sad.
By Gary Rosen, at
Sat Jan 19, 04:28:00 AM:
"...a national survey revealed that fully one-third of Democrats wanted the surge to fail. My suspicion is that if the survey had distinguished active Democrats from self-identified Democrats the percentage supporting defeat would have been much greater."
I share that suspicion, TH. That is the main reason why yesterday, after having been a registered Democrat since I was first old enough to vote over 30 years ago, I switched my registration to Republican.
By , at
Sat Jan 19, 09:13:00 AM:
It seems amazing in todays hyper-polarized political culture to find someone who's made that sort of change, and I think we should take the opportunity to acknowledge a new GOP-er, so: Welcome to the big tent!
It's not just that so many Democrats want the surge to fail (like some of my own family, shocking and sad to say), but that their motivation is so personally focused on Bush. They really hate him, even though he's a very mainstream politician (i.e. almost a Democrat).
In my own experience those very same Dems were pro-Kosovo intervention, and many are in favor of "saving Darfur". So interventionist wars per se aren't the issue.
Perhaps Bush is the main problem, but a muscular self-defense is also an uncomfortable issue. My hippie uncle and aunt (nearly sixty-five years old now) are offended by patriotism, and that's another aspect of the post-9/11 world they dislike, and they absolutely refuse to consider there might be positive results from winning the war.
By , at
Sat Jan 19, 11:36:00 AM:
There's no reasoning with the lunatic fringe.
By Gary Rosen, at
Sat Jan 19, 04:05:00 PM:
Thanks, "anonymous". While I read mostly right-wing blogs, I'm still not as far to the right as most of the posters but as with many others supporting the WoT is a key issue for me. Beyond that, though, there are some "cultural" reasons that my politics are migrating rightward.
One is the issue of individual responsibility. It seems to me that for those on the left, the only people who have to take responsibility for their actions are their political opponents. Everyone else - criminals, illegal aliens, drug addicts, terrorists - gets off the hook. Somebody "made them do it".
Another reason is exemplified by a quote originating, ironically, from an iconic (and murderous) leftist, Mao Tse-Tung. He is reported to have said, "I like dealing with rightists. They tell you what they really think unlike the leftists who say one thing and mean another." Couldn't have said it better myself.
