So warns Lawrence Haas, former Al Gore communications director and current vice-president of the Committee on the Present Danger.
I think he is exactly right. As unpopular as this war may be now, its loss may be even more unpopular, and blame may well stick to a party that didn’t have particularly strong national security cred in the first place. Especially if they are seen as too fast to give up the fight, as they were a generation ago.
Also, some Democrats are of the mistaken opinion that a loss in Iraq would be seen as a loss for the Bush administration. Haas correctly notes that the loss would be seen as an American one, not a Republican one, by our enemies abroad, and they would be emboldened by it.
Thus, the domestic and geopolitical implications of a loss in Iraq do not favor the Democratic Party in any way, and Democrats shouldn’t be so naive as to think that they do.
Yes, but the problem is, it’s looking like a loss in Iraq is inevitable. Obviously, the best outcome is a stable, peaceful, democratic Iraq, but I really don’t see how the US could act to accomplish that. It seems like we’ve already lost the war, and if that’s the case, it’s wisest to pull out our troops in a safe manner to prevent more of them from dying in a war we won’t win.
You’re making it a self-fulfilling prophesy, though, with that thinking.
We have here a defeated enemy who decided to work on a segment of the American body politic with no stomach for military casualties. They knew such a segment existed because of the Somalian incident and indeed because of Vietnam itself.
Pull out, and every enemy will then know that all they have to do, even if they lose the initial phase of the war, is blow up enough IEDs and wait for Democrats to win an election.
It that the reputation you want Democrats to have? I think Lawrence Haas would have an issue with that.
It is a provocative piece, but I think there is some truth there. And this isn’t someone secretly hoping for the Bushites to win.
I am not sure about your overall point, however form your quote this stood out.
Our withdrawal from Vietnam led to what as far as the Soviets? Very little.
The Cold war ended about 13 years after we withdrew from Vietnam. By most ways of looking at it, the Soviet Union lost. They lost badly. They are gone. The world is turning from Communism to capitalism almost everywhere.
There will be no win. There will be no peace. Thinking that a win is possible is right up there with believing that fluffy pink elephants live in your closet. It’s time to wake up and smell the disaster.
Utter balderdash. Read up on ‘spheres of influence’ in US-Soviet politics someday. Both nations had a tacit agreement to keep their paws off the other’s sphere. The sabre-rattling was to impress the ignorant masses (and by ‘ignorant’, I mean naive to the ways of how international relations actually work).
But there’s the risk of the alternative, though, too. Stay in, and have more and more people die for no reason, against an enemy we can’t beat.
This isn’t a “defeated enemy who decided to work on a segmnent of the American body politic”. It’s not all just rebel Ba’athists. If that’s all it was, it would be easy. It’s 5 or 6 different factions, all fighting each other and us for control of the country, with groups like Al Qaeda, and nations like Iran and Saudi Arabia fighting by proxy.
The war is not only unpopular but damaging to the US and it’s reputation. We are seen as an occupier and an expansionist power in many parts of the world. This will not end and the light of freedom is being extinguished. This admin has remade us into something ugly. At least in the past we kept our international transgressions secret.
I feel that many people take it for granted that there’s a correlation between our presence in Iraq and stability, where’s the proof of this? What if our presence is the very reason for the level of instability? We have been a catalyst for insurgency and civil war, what makes you think our continued presence will help?
On preview: You think the IED’s will stop if a republican is elected in '08? :dubious:
I think this argument appeals to political expediency rather than consideration of what is wrong or wrong. We’ve had enough of political expediency and ‘party before country’ in these past six years. It’s gotten us into the cluster fuck that is Iraq. The dems should do what’s right for the country, and let the country judge them on that.
Opposition to the war will not cost the Democratic party. Haas’ piece relies on three faulty assumptions:
Opposition to the war can only be appeased by a complete withdrawl of US forces, such as was forced with the Congressional vote to cut off funding of the Vietnam war in 1975. Several more likely scenatios exist, the most promising being a withdrawl of US forces to the de facto Kurdistan in the north with the partitioning of the rest of the nation into Shia and Sunni regions. This would involve a heavy UN presence, which is going to be tougher given the announcement today from Tony Blair, but not impossible.
Blair’s announcement brings us to a second point: The utter incompetence of the Bush administration in the prosecution of this war makes victory impossible without a radical change. Unfortunately, Bush will still be in office for the next two years and has shown no compunction about being “hemmed-in” by an adversarial Congress. The thing that has alienated Bush from the rest of the world–the reason why he’s finding it difficult to get them to cooperate with his latest schemes–is Bush and his track record, not the carping of his opponents.
Haas’ fear seems to be regarding the election after the next one, which he presumes can be won by a Democrat. But his analogy with the Carter administration completely ignores a major factor in Carter’s defeat: The terrible decline in the economy during his White House tenure. Whether or not that occurs again, it will have little to do with actions in Iraq.
The war in Iraq is squarely a Republican albatross; it is difficult for me to see how it could ever be perceived as a liability for competent Democrats who oppose it.
Sure, we defeated the enemy that was the Iraqi military fighting against the American invasion. (And most Americans had no problem stomaching the few military casualties required to accomplish that.) But that was years ago. The real “enemy” problem we’ve got now is the mutual enmity of various insurgents and militias, both of whom are to varying extents attacking American troops as a sort of sideline to their struggle for power and control over each other. These mutual enemies are definitely not defeated, and so far our attempts to defeat them have been ineffective, not to mention counterproductive.
Moreover, it doesn’t look as though there’s any realistic way we can defeat them, and nothing in your posts suggests that you have any plausible strategies for making that happen. Interminable vague pep-talks about how “we can’t give up” and “defeatism only emboldens the enemy” and “we don’t want to get a reputation for weakness” may make us civilians sitting safely stateside feel all martial and resolute and all, but they don’t actually accomplish jack-shit in terms of bringing peace and stability to Iraq.
Come back when you’ve got any suggestions about strategies for continuing the war that look likely to, you know, actually achieve its objectives. Then we can talk about whether it would be preferable to support or oppose continuation of the war.
A reputation for being willing to confront grim realities and make hard choices, while irresponsible Republicans with their heads up their asses continue to throw lives and money away with no realistic strategy or purpose beyond catering to their own desired PR image of “toughness”? Sounds good to me.
Lawrence Haas sounds like a bone-stupid motherfucker. He’s practically channeling Bush here. “If we withdraw it will embolden our enemies, who are SOOOO emboldenable!”
That’s not a good enough reason, especially without any sign of a working plan. Bush knows he won’t win. He’s just stalling so that the next guy has to be the one that actually signs the troops withdrawal orders.
Seriously, I don’t care if other people will think we’re all pussies if we stop fighting a pointless and fruitless war that only injures our military capability in places other than Iraq. It’s both the morally right thing and in the overall interest of the US to pull out. If we’re ever in a war with actual consequences for the US besides “the crazy guys with no regard for human life, especial their own, who hate us irrationally will call us chicken”, then we can talk about fighting it out to the bitter end.
And, as pointed out, the Enemy in Iraq is neither “defeated” nor “a enemy”. They’re several groups of varying political power, some of which are intimately connected with the very government we’re trying to support.
Hmmm. While the US presence does seem to allow the insurgents the ability to recruit from amongst those folks who don’t like having foreigners in their country (Iraq), the actions of the various insurgents seem to suggest that they are not solely fighting to “free” Iraq from US occupation.
In other words, while some US led convoys are targetted by IED’s, there seem to be many more car bombs and such targetting market places and what not.
I presume that there is a couple reasons for targeting other civilians in Iraq:
Make the US look bad. (By demonstrating the lack of ability to reduce the deaths and violence.)
Kill Sunnis. (Or Shiite.) The Kurd’s dont seem to be involved much, either as targets or as antagonists… but I could be wrong.
Become top tough guy in Bagdad, so that when the US does pull out, your faction gains as much political control as possible in the aftermath.
The only way to get a “victory”, from the US viewpoint, is for there to be a stable (and safe for the citizens to go shopping) country after we leave, as far as I can figure it. But if the folks who live there are intent on fighting a civil war (for either political or religious reasons) against themselves, then we wont get that stability. In other words, it seems that the hopes of a “victory” rest on the people of Iraq, and not so much on the US, now.
As such, my hopes of a “victory” have declined greatly during this second term of GWB.
And Afghanistan was the USSR’s Viet Nam in many ways. They fought against a loose-knit insurgency with not much more in common than a wish to rid themselves of a foreign occupier. The Mujahadeen was financed by their main ideological ‘enemy’, like the US was fighting an independence movement financed by the USSR in Viet Nam.
In fact, I think the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan is a better analogy than Viet Nam for the clusterfuck in Iraq. We invaded a sovereign nation who are not cooperating with our plans to remake them in our image. The enemy here is a bunch of differing groups with differing objectives funded by Iran, Saudi Arabia and others. Their main commonality is that they want the Foreign Invaders out of their homeland.
Did “staying the course” do any good for the USSR’s nine-year conflict in Afghanistan?
Huh? Vietnam was lost after six years of Republican presidential power.
I don’t buy the theory. Nobody is ever going to believe that losing Iraq is anyone’s fault but Bush’s. The anti-war sentiment is growing stronger each day, by 2008 it will be political suicide to continue to support it. And if Democrats get in and another terror attack comes, they will be in position to exploit it just as surely as Bush did.
What constitutes “winning” or “losing” in Iraq? I call bullshit on the entire notion that those words have any relevance there. It’s not the US Vs. an enemy there, it’s the US hemmed in between two sides of a civil war. What would constitute “success” in that context?
All the language of “winning” and “losing” there is just rhetorical sleight of hand. It isn’t that kind of conflict. Those terms are not applicable.
Since 70% of the country is opposed to staying in Iraq, I think the political losers are those who continue to support this abortion, but political success doesn’t mean anything to me anyway. It’s about being right, not about winning elections.
Mr. Moto: while I appreciate your supposed concern for the fate of the Democratic Party, I have trouble believing in its genuineness.
Not to mention, maybe with respect to war and peace, we should just do what’s right, and treat the question of which party might be hurt by so doing as a lesser consideration.
IOW, this is a goddamned stupid debate. You’re basically suggesting that the Dems should sacrifice the lives of young men and women (or save them in order to rot here) in order to aid their future electoral prospects.
Concern like that I could do without.
As Patrick Fitzgerald said yesterday, to Libby and Cheney, Valerie Wilson wasn’t a person, she was an argument. Same deal applies here: you are arguing that the Dems should treat the lives of our soldiers as something less than real. You are arguing that those lives are a commodity that can and should be expended in the quest for electoral success.
That argument, sir, repulses me. I wonder how you can live with yourself in proposing such things.
But feel free to advocate that position to the next American soldier you meet.