It’s the Thought that Counts

Until recently I have been torn about what to do in Iraq.  That makes me a bit of an exception, since most people who are well-informed and care about the issue have very strong opinions.  Still, while I have leaned towards the anti-war view, I’ve always been very conflicted about it.

I believe that, in retrospect, the war was clearly a mistake, but I don’t blame most of the people who supported it at the time.  At that time, the argument hinged largely on the existence of WMDs, or at least substantial WMD programs, and that existence was vouched for in very strong terms by the nation’s intelligence agencies.  Given a belief in the WMD accusations, the decision to go to war, while still somewhat dubious, was at least understandable.  I don’t think there was any real reason to doubt the WMD accusations at the time, either.  Even most people who opposed the war believed there was some truth to those accusations.  Saddam was definitely acting as though he had something to hide.  The real blame for the error in going to war lies in my mind with the intelligence agencies who got the facts wrong, and (most importantly) with the Bush administration, which from all accounts created an atmosphere where dissenting opinions were ignored, and delivering evidence and/or analysis to support preconceived goals was rewarded.

Once in, of course, there are lots of reasons to try to succeed in Iraq despite the fact that we shouldn’t have been there in the first place.  A stable, friendly democracy in the Middle East would be a huge improvement, and an unstable, fractured, and dysfunctional Iraq would be a huge disaster.  The real problem for me in determining the right course of action was the great degree of uncertainty connected to either course of action.  Withdrawal could put pressure on the Iraqi government to step up, make some tough decisions, make the political compromises it needed to, and really take control.  However, it could also lead to total failure.  Similarly, staying in could eventually produce an acceptable outcome, but could also be hopeless, leading to the same disaster but with more lives and money wasted in the meantime.  Given that all four of these outcomes seemed possible to me, there was not much of a way to decide on a clearly correct course of action.

One thing that was clear to me was that if we were going to stay in, the surge was the right way to do it.  It was at least a clear improvement over what had been the status quo up to that point.  (On a related point, another reason I don’t blame those who supported the choice to go to war is that much of the cost of the war has been more the result of mismanagement than a necessary cost of such an endeavor.  Yes, the danger of mismanagement is always something you should take into account when making a decision like that, but the level of idiocy in the conduct of the war seems like something that someone should be forgiven for not foreseeing.)

All of my indecision has gone away recently, though, as the Iraqi government has begun to push for the kind of timeline that Democrats have been asking for all along.  The most extreme example came today when al-Maliki said that Obama’s 16-month time frame was correct.  As far as I’m concerned, whether a timeline was a good idea before or not, this request from Iraq makes it the obviously correct course of action now.  Iraq is a sovereign nation with its own democratically elected government.  Because Iraq depends on the US for its security, the US has incredible leverage over the Iraqi government, but that should not be mistaken for a lack of Iraqi sovereignty.  In the end, if Iraq asks the US troops to leave, they have to go.

McCain has said this himself in the past, but now seems to refuse to acknowledge the legitimacy of the request.  The reason he gives, that al-Maliki is just doing this for domestic political reasons, is idiotic.  That’s what’s supposed to happen in a democracy.  If the vast majority of voters within a country believe something to be good policy, their leaders should be forced to fall in line with that belief.  If anything, the fact that this is the will of the Iraqi populace rather than of al-Maliki personally should make it a more important request.  Is it best for Iraq if the US leaves?  Probably.  It’s definitely not certain, but it’s the future of Iraq that is at stake, and when there’s a tough call to make, it’s the Iraqi people who should get to make it.

Tags: barack obama, foreign policy, george w bush, iraq, john mccain

Democrats seem very happy to tie McCain to Bush. The accusation that McCain would represent a “Bush third term” is incredibly common. It’s understandable. Bush is incredibly unpopular, his policies are failing, and the party he leads has lost most of its credibility. It seems like the obvious way to attack McCain. Just one problem — no one believes it. Well, some people believe it, but those people are voting for Democrats regardless of any strategic decisions made during the campaign. It’s not an attack that will work.

Most people, when they think of McCain, immediately picture him as a maverick Republican, willing to break with his party frequently to do what he thinks is right. This view isn’t completely unfounded. McCain can point to a large number of issues where he’s broken with the president. He supports stem cell research. He believes in global warming and using a carbon cap-and-trade system to slow it down. He criticized the handling of Katrina (not that that one took a ton of political courage). He called for Rumsfeld’s resignation long before it happened. He argued for increased troop levels in Iraq long before the surge (a strategy that would obviously have at least led to things being better than they are now). He was part of the moderate gang of 14 that created a compromise on judges. The list goes on — not to mention that McCain ran against Bush in 2000 and was only beaten after the Bush campaign used some very nasty campaign tactics. Sure, he campaigned for Bush in 2004, but most see that as a statement of general agreement rather than unwavering support.

Most importantly, perhaps, beyond any particular issue, is the fact that McCain is just more intelligent/competent than Bush. Most of the biggest mistakes of the Bush administration weren’t issues of explicit policy choices. No one chose to leave hundreds of people in New Orleans without any help. What they did choose to do was appoint a political crony as head of FEMA, rather than someone who knew what they were doing. People chose to invade Iraq, but that wouldn’t have been a particularly insane decision if Iraq really did have WMDs, and if the resources necessary to ensure a swift and thoroughly successful follow-up were really devoted to the effort. The Bush administration seems to have been a closed-off echo chamber, where critical thought that differed with accepted dogma were squashed and loyalty was valued over competence. It also simply has a person at the top who is unable to really make intelligent decisions for himself and relies on his top aids, resulting in infighting and a lack of accountability. McCain, at least at first glance, seems to be much better when it comes to these kinds of shortcomings.

When Obama and friends characterize McCain as no different than Bush, I really think most people find the claim unbelievable. Instead it makes Obama look more partisan and less like the new, more honest politician that he claims to be. This is not to say an attack along these lines is not justified or feasible. It just needs to be toned down to a believable level. Maybe calling McCain “Bush lite” would work better. Or criticize McCain on specific issues. He is actually not that different than Bush on a lot of things — he just seems to be because of the disagreement on high-profile but frequently (somewhat) minor issues. He wants to continue the Bush Iraq policy and foreign policy more generally. He wants to make the Bush tax cuts permanent. Those kinds of things can be stated. They’ll have a similar aggregate effect. They will also, I feel, be much more readily accepted by the audience.

The other thing that needs to be done is to undermine the overall McCain persona. There are two ways to do this. One is to say the actual perception is flawed. In a couple ways this is true, most notably the extent to which McCain does and has relied on lobbyists to run his campaign. It’s pretty hypocritical to make it illegal for them to donate large amounts to your campaign, but then allow them to work for you full-time for months in what might otherwise be high paying jobs as volunteers. That doesn’t have all the implied expectations problems that come with donations? On top of that, it gives them a ton of access. It also implies the kind of appointments in a future administration that could lead to something like Katrina.

The other way to undermine the perception is to talk about the “old McCain” and the “new McCain”. The narrative the Democrats can use (and which I think is largely accurate) is that after 2000, McCain felt he lost because he couldn’t get the party base to move towards him. He really wanted to be president, so he resolved to become more acceptable to the base. He spent 8 years becoming less of a maverick. He shifted from criticizing the religious right to courting them. Having initially opposed the Bush tax cuts, he switched to supporting them in the run-up to the primary. Emphasizing these and other changes not only makes McCain look inconsistent and political — views directly at odds with his image. They make the public in general more willing to accept a new narrative about McCain.

Let’s face it. McCain isn’t Bush, and he isn’t a generic Republican. He’d make a much better president than either of those. I’d still much prefer Obama, but the Republicans nominated the right person. Ignoring that will not make it go away — it’ll just make you look stupid.

Tags: george w bush, john mccain, politics