The Art of Politics

In From The Cold

The Winter Soldier returns...

In a story about Kerry and Iraq that implausibly begins "Staking out new ground on Iraq", Senator Kerry finally embraced the girl he's been flirting with the whole campaign - his old girlfriend - the anti-war voter.

Today's incarnation of Kerry's Iraq policy continues the insult to the greatest friend and ally a nation could have, decrying the Iraq War as a unilateral one, ignoring contributions from numerous countries who have lost troops and who will certainly be surprised to hear that America is in Iraq alone. He once again proclaimed the US rushed to war, despite babysitting and running Operation Southern Watch for thousands of sorties for what most people refer to as a "decade".

Most Americans find backseat driving unseemly, but sometimes that's what a challenger has to do against an incumbent. But they really dislike combining backseat driving with Monday-morning quarterbacking. For all of the problems the US has in Iraq, there is a litany of problems we don't have. For every uprising in Fallujah, we didn't have a siege and urban war costing thousands of dead Americans in taking Baghdad. For every Moqtada Al-Sadr, there are two dead Hussein's and Saddam in a ratcage. For every problem with supplies, we didn't have a mass exodus or humanitarian crisis. For every shutdown of the Iraq pipeline, we didn't have years of putting out well fires. For every Baghdad blackout, there was no lack of fresh water for the people of Iraq.

War, it's been said, is a series of catastrophes that result in victory. You cannot trade one set for another, nor would you often want to. We do well to appreciate the fact that difficulties in Iraq are not insurmountable, not remotely. But Kerry is behind - enough so infact that his campaign has decided to Go Dean, which will probably become a phrase in our political lexicon. His campaign had tried to co-opt any attacks and weaknesses a Democrat faces on military issues by presenting Kerry as a Viet Nam veteran who spoke hawkishly on Iraq, with lip service to "do it better" as a wink and nod to the anti-war base. Kerry needs property to the right of Bush, he can't cede the ground between them. But with Kerry's vascillation, he's ceded the center by being to the left and right on Iraq, but never consistently in either location. Now, he has to take his stand on his own field, rather than staking claim on new turf.

The problem for Kerry is that this move buys him credit with the already converted - those egregiously offended by the war in Iraq already plan to vote against Bush, and most likely for Kerry. Rather than expanding his core to include disaffected independents who may like the idea that Saddam is gone but not like seeing Al-Sadr going free, he is consolidating his anti-war base. Base turnout may be where the Democrats see this election being decided. But Kerry lost credibility on this issue long ago - it's good to finally have a position he can call his own, but having been all over the map on the issue means that any discussion of Iraq with Kerry will inevitably involve phrases like "flip-flop" or "voted for before I voted against".

It also ignores one political reality - people would rather believe the best about their country than the worst. Presented with two plausible cases - on the one hand, the argument in support of a liberating America removing Saddam and working to make the world safer, and on the other, the argument that Iraq was a bad idea borne of bad intelligence with a dark horizon - Americans will almost always choose the one that appeals to their better nature, with rheotric of a higher purpose and grand vision. The Kerry campaign lacks a vision on Iraq that is anything but irrepressibly bleak.

It seems they've determined the only way to victory is to throw a Hail Mary - make the war in Iraq a political football and throw it as far as you can, and hope you come down in the end zone with the election...

Posted by MEC2 at September 21, 2004 12:22 AM