Blue Mass Group

Reality-based commentary on politics.

Comments

  1. You’ve got big shoes to fill over there but it’s clear that you’re up to it! 

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    Having dispensed with the sucking up, the big question that your post raises in my mind is — is coming to a clear position that makes sense and meets the criteria you’ve stated even possible?  Not least because there may well be no realistic solution other than withdrawal, but also because Democrats aren’t so good at consensus.  I don’t believe that there was much consensus on Viet Nam among the Democrats, even after McCarthy and Kennedy and then, belatedly, Humphrey came out against the war in 1968 (see, for example, the Chicago Convention).  In any event, what do you think are the conditions here that you see make such a consensus possible?

  2. repeating GOP talking points all over.

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    1/ First, thank you for the flip-flopper part.  It is so nice and I am sure Rove will listen to you with the greatest pleasure.  It was enough for me to consider all you were saying with the highest doubt, because, whether you believe it or not (you may be truly misguided), you are simply helping the GOP and those in the party who only want to wait and see.

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    2/There are Dems who want to take a strong position on Iraq.  Murtha is one of them.  In the Senate Kerry, Feingold, and Boxer will propose an amendment calling to withdraw the troops  before the end of the year.

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    Unfortunately, Dean is stuck in the middle of a dispute among Democrats (he does not need to be put that on his back), where most Democrats are simply afraid to take a position and would prefer to see the Republicans lose by themselves, without making any proposals.  It is not going to happen.  We are going to lose this election cycle (like 02 and 04) because we are afraid to take a strong position on anything.

    • Just because it is a talking point doesn’t mean it is not true!

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      I gather that your preferred option is withdrawal, period.  What about the rest of the post, with respect to minimizing chaos and future terror threats, etc.  How would you address that?

    • First, as CentralMassDad pointed out, talking points needn’t be false. We all know that the “flip-flopper” thing was vastly overblown, but there were elements of truth to it. And the truth is why the label stuck.

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      Secondly… I’m not sure what you’re saying with point two. You seem to be quite agreeing with Charlie. Charlie doesn’t deny that “there are Dems who want to take a strong position on Iraq,” (citing Murtha in particular but not denying that there are others) but the whole point of his article is that “most Democrats are simply afraid to take a position and would prefer to see the Republicans lose by themselves.”

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      Is Murtha plan [sic] the “Democratic plan”? That’s a perfectly legitimate question to ask. It’s a good start, and has a good pedigree, but Dean and the Dems sure aren’t comfortable talking about it.

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      Sounds like, on point 2, you’re violently agreeing.

    • I originally wrote, but deleted because it sounded too defensive, “Spare me the accusation of repeating GOP talking points.” Not that it would have stopped anyone.

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      Look, the whole point is to forget about that crap and get our policy right. I don’t give a damn what the GOP says. The fact that they have a political strategist named Karl Rove whose job it is to take advantage of our weaknesses, does not excuse the Dems from doing their job.

  3. Nice post. Personally, I take no umbrage at affirming that Kerry was a flip-flopper. I worked my rear end off for him, and I thought he was something at the time (perhaps in comparison), but since the election I concluded that he does indeed live up to that moniker.

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    I’m not sure I have answers either, but I’ll offer a notion I’ve been thinking about w’r’t Iraq: decisiveness. Idea is, foreign policy should be implemented around specific actions that will lead to decisive results. Long-term objectives can be taken on as well, but they are pursued by constantly identifying and achieving concrete short-term milestones.

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    Viewed from the prism of taking decisive action, invading Iraq made sense. Iraq had been a simmering foreign policy disaster, a regional threat, and in some ways (however tenuous), a national threat, for many years; and the situation had essentially not changed in those years, since the US took holding actions but no decisive action. So, invasion to accomplish regime change was a decisive action to achieve the policy goal of solving the problems posed by Iraq. (Misleading the public for the reasons for the invasion is another story.)

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    [Note, I’m not saying I support the invasion whole-sale. But that’s another story.]

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    What was not, and still is not, a decisive action, is the ensuing occupation. I can argue it is not decisive on two grounds:

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    1) It obviously has not been decisive so far. It has been the same thing, again and again, with little to no meaningful achievement in terms of quelling the insurgency and giving the government the means to provide security.

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    2) More fundamentally, it cannot be decisive, because our objective of building a stable democracy is out of our control. Consider that if we pulled out today, ours fears of an insurgent take-over might not materialize; the government might struggle on by itself and pull itself up. On the other hand, suppose we stayed five more years, and when we left, the guns of the insurgency were nearly silenced; then we pulled out. Guess what? Within a year, the insurgency might revive and the government might still be brought down. What we are doing in Iraq today is like sketching a drawing in the sand – whether success or failure, our results will have little staying power once we are gone.

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    So my question is, what is the decisive action for the US to take in Iraq today?

    • The long term vision or goal might be ” an education,” but we foucus on next week’s test, passing math, and being promoted to the next grade along the way.

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      The problem, as you note, is choosing the right short term steps– the decisive ones, in your words.  Otherwise, we risk “measuring” progress with an irrelevant yardstick like MacNamara’s body counts in Vietnam.

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      I wish I had suggestions as to what the right decisive actions might be.

      • Thinking about this thorny problem, I started focusing on the phrase: “It’s not about Iraq. It’s about the Middle East.” The problem Iraq posed in the first place was not based on Iraq itself: it was that Iraq was a problem state in a problem region. The solutions we have pursued – and the barriers to solving them – have all been bound up in the politics of the larger Middle Eastern region.

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        Take from that what you will, I admit it’s a vague statement. But it led me to this for decisive action:

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        Secure diplomatic agreements between Iraq and all of its bordering neighbors that they will mutually commit to each other’s security. The biggest implication would be: if the Iraqi government is threatened from within, the neighbors will support it. (By closing their own borders, by providing military assistance, or whatever) But it would be a two-way street: Iraq would also pledge to support its neighbors (some of whom are having their own troubles); and with Iraq’s oil resources, that support could be meaningful as well.

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        This would 1) provide for Iraq’s security, without further US occupation; and 2) establish the legitimacy of the Iraqi government in the eyes of the broader Middle Eastern region.

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        With that agreement in place, could we walk away? I think we could, and should.

        • The biggest risk in Iraq is a general Shiite-Sunni civil war, in which Iran and Saudi Arabia become involved supporting the opoosing sides, respectively.  This could provoke a disasterous regional conflagration.

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          Iran and Saudi Arabia also happen to be the two big neighbors that would be required.  Neither would be what one could describe as an ideal “partner” for such an effort, even under the best of circumstances, and it has not been the best of circumstances since January, 2000.  Iran, in particular, seems to be on the march, and has zero interest in a stable Iraq at the moment, never mind giveing the US any kind of assist on anything.

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          The sheer difficulty of this type of solution is likely what leads Democrats back to “We should never have invaded in the first place!”  Sheesh.  Sunny optimism wins elections, but I don’t see where it is going to come from.

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              Inauguration Day for an administration that, in fits of childish pique, insulted almost every other nation in the world.  Tough to build international coalitions in that context.

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              A shame there is no editing after a post.  Thanks for pointing out the error.

        • “if the Iraqi government is threatened from within, the neighbors will support it.”

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          Not to poke fun here, and kudos for putting new ideas out, but that didn’t exactly work out well when Syria helped out Lebanon with their civil war.  Nationstates and NGOs are basically a bunch of jackyls in that part of the world. Iran and Syria are already helping various factions against others inside of Iraq and it won’t stop anytime soon.  If Iraq slides further into abject civil war (we’re not anywhere close to how bad it could be), their neighbors will be no help at all.

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          Check out this remark from the Iraqi Deputy Foreign Minister on Zarqawi’s death and the reaction to it in the arab world:

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          “Iraq was expecting a clear stand from our Arab brothers; that they would congratulate the Iraqi people and their security forces on this great accomplishment in our war on terror but we were surprised by their silence and by the attitude shown by Hamas which can only be interpreted as frank support for the murderers of Iraqis.”

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          They demanded an apology from Hamas, too.  This guy isn’t an American stooge, he’s accurately reflecting the feelings of people in Iraq towards a dead murdering nutcase. 

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          Basically, the least bad option almost regardless of your individual priorities at this point involves US troops maintaining a large presence in Iraq for the next 5 years.  They’ll most likely continue to recede to the bases for everything but the big operations (another one started in baghdad this AM btw).  But that’s where we are, unfortunately.

  4. “It was not an assertion of values to nominate Kerry, but rather an assertion of electoral strategy.”

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    How do you know this?  As one of the apparent handful of people online who genuinely admires Kerry, I resent it.  Kerry was nominated for the most elementary of reasons – because the people who paid attention to what he was saying LIKED HIM and felt he was well qualified for the job.  I know it’s unfashionable to say so, but he also gives a great speech, and is warm and approachable in person.

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    So stop helping to spread lies.  Kerry snark may originate with the Globe and Herald and Rove, but it gets a big freaking assist from MA online lefties.

    • The single strongest and most common argument I heard — all over the place — for “why Kerry?” was that Kerry was “electable”. Whatever that means. That right there makes it “an assertion of electoral strategy.” You may feel otherwise, but most people were not voting for him because they believed his platform and vision, but rather because they thought he could win.

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      Electoral strategy is extremely important, don’t get me wrong. But it felt to me like electoral strategy was all that was mattering to people.

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      N.B. I was a Dean supporter, so I concede I’m not entirely unbiased on this matter…

      • You are definitively entitled to your opinion, but this does not make it fact.

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        That people thought that Kerry was electable does not mean they could not ALSO believe in his vision.

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        You may believe otherwise, but most people I know voted for Kerry because they thought he would be the “best president”, not necessarily the best candidate.

      • “electable.”  We see the word pop up in our race here in MA for governor too.  Again, another post for another time.

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        I’ll admit it.  I supported Kerry because he was “electable.”  Lots of folks did the same. 

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        I think the electability label had a negative effect on John Kerry.  It made him too cautious.  He didn’t want to screw up, so instead of really hitting back HARD when he got swift-boated, he waited too long to respond, and by then the Republicans owned that narrative.  I believe John Kerry has said as much himself.  He’d do things much differently now.

    • I should clarify that Lerner does state that it’s not necessarily a wholesale slam at Kerry, who has his merits. But nominating him on strategic grounds rather than actual agreement with his positions — which he demonstrates was the case — was a foolish mistake.

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      So, rather than rehash the 2003-4 election cycle (of which I’m guilty), the relevance to today is that Dems need to actually propose action based on the merits, not on a misguided attempt to “game” public opinion. Honest policy first — and we’ll make the soundbites work somehow.

  5. Great post, Charley.  Lots of food for thought.

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    I wasn’t a rock solid Kerry supporter.  I supported him though (anyone but Bush), and I volunteered for his campaign in NH.  Looking back, I wished I had volunteered for Dean, but that’s a post for another time.

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    Does the flip-flop label really apply though if Kerry voted for the war based on the bogus propaganda that the Bushies where pushing?  I wonder because I tend to be very anti-war, but if I thought a country was going to nuke us to smithereens, for the greater good I might have voted to invade Iraq too.  Hindsight can be a real bitch sometimes.

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    Right now it seems to me that our Washington Democrats are counting their chickens before they hatch.  Instead of working on a real strategy for getting us out of Iraq, should we gain seats in the House and Senate, they are fighting over committee assignments and who gets to be Speaker.  If we don’t get a plan together, like yesterday, we will remain the minority.  It’s a shame too because it really seems like America is hungry for some real leadership. 

    • “Does the flip-flop label really apply though if Kerry voted for the war based on the bogus propaganda that the Bushies where pushing? “

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      IMO, yes, because he should have known better.  IIRC, he was on the foreign relations committee for years.  So he did know better.  The vote was right before a senate election and he was clearly thinking about his presidential run in 04.

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      What he didn’t know at the time but does now was how badly the Bush team would screw it up so badly.  At the time, he was hedging on a probable quick victory with less reconstruction idiocy so he had to support it if he wanted to keep his chances for 04 alive.  Sad but true.

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      Of course, the flip to the vote was at the time we were in a negotiating position with Saddam and the motion was put to the senate to strengthen bush’s hand in winning concessions.  Which it did, and we won concessions from Saddam.  Then Bush invaded anyways.  So if Kerry was just intending to play hardball with negotiations, you can’t blame him so much. 

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