« May 2005 | Main | July 2006 »
December 05, 2005
We’re in it ‘til “Victory”
President Bush has out and said it, and his message was clear and quickly repeated: the United States will stay the course to “victory” in Iraq. Given the recent widespread calls for a scale-down if not full withdrawal of the American military presence in the country, the tide of critique and outrage that quickly followed the president’s policy announcement should be of little surprise to even the least avid news watcher. So that’s it, two more years in Iraq – Right? In fact, due to the landscape of the coming Democratic and Republican primaries, these primaries’ most likely results, and the rhetorical ambiguity – and therefore, political utility -- of the term “victory,” this development arguably means that the United States will be in Iraq for the long-haul, ‘til perhaps even the staunchest neo-cons find cause to ring the bells of “victory.”
Reason 1: McCain Won’t Walk Away and Others Will Follow His Lead
Many democrats fall down due to the jelly-ness of their foreign policy – it’s almost trite to say as much. Republicans have and will likely continue to win national elections in part due to their perceived sure-footed, tough-mindedness on the use and maintenance of American might. Even beyond this though, the front-runner Republican nominee for President, Arizona Senator John McCain, possesses not only unrivaled foreign policy credentials, wide-spread adoration as a tough-minded independent, but also a long voting and speaking record that shows his general alignment with the President on the topic of American withdrawal from Iraq. In the campaign, John McCain can politically not – and is personally unlikely to -- commit to a withdrawal from Iraq that could in any way be cast as hasty. Under McCain we’d stay the course – and against McCain, very few other potential Republican candidates would likely use a “strategy of withdrawal” as a way to differentiate their political planks. Thus, if a Republican wins – be it McCain or otherwise – the ensuing administration would be in promise, if not outright belief, bound to stay the course in Iraq.
Reason 2: The Frontrunner Democratic Contenders Wouldn’t Pull Out Either, Even if They Could
Arguably, there are two lead contenders for the Democratic nomination for President: Senator Hillary Clinton and Virginia Governor Mark Warner. This is not to say that other Dems won’t toss their hats into the ring, but these two will likely be two of the first to do so, and at our early vantage point, seem best positioned to take the nomination. Ignoring for a moment that both will have to play to a moderate base to hope to win against McCain or a likewise-positioned Republican candidate, HRC would, for one, likely (a) come out neutral on the topic of American withdrawal on Iraq or (b) argue to stay the course – both because to-date she’s largely supported the war, and won’t want to be cast, Kerry-style, as wobbly and because she may actually think that staying the course is the right thing to do. As to Warner? Well, blessed with the clean foreign policy slate that equally blesses and curses many a hopeful Governor, it’s rather tough to say. His only public indications on the topic seem to put him in the withdrawl upon "vistory" camp. In a recent public address he argued, "To set an arbitrary deadline or specific date is not appropriate...It is incumbent on the president to set milestones for what he believes will be the conclusion." Given the ambiguity and infrequency of statements like these, it seems tough to argue that he has a firm commitment to staying in or getting out of Iraq in the near-term, meaning that out of his record alone he could chose as his personal beliefs and political connivances direct him. Lacking a window onto his worldview, one can only speculate as to how political craftiness would influence his stated goals: in the lead up to the Democratic nomination, he might be tempted to distance himself from the war – and from candidates who support or are wishy-washy on it – to win less hawkish moderates and adamant neo-con haters. This choice might be risky for the general election, however, where Republican tacticians might very well combine a stated desire for withdrawal with Warner’s general foreign and military policy inexperience into a dangerous “untried yet still weak” message. As such, Warner – and any Democratic candidate with thin or debatable foreign policy and security credentials – may very likely come out neutral or steadfast on Iraq as well.
Reason 3: The Rhetoric of Victory is Powerful
“Victory” is slippery – especially for a war that has already been declared as “won.” Victory over what? Whom? Seemingly, victory is what vocal and powerful policy makers and observers will make of it – and it will happen when they call it. And they won’t act in unison. “Victory” is a reasonable aspiration, but a difficult, metric-less standard by which to gauge and set policy. Politically, it will define the debate over the war for a long time to come, because the opposite of victory is “defeat,” and no politician can bear to accept defeat or to be labeled with defeatism. Thus, for rhetorical reasons alone, the United States seems bound to stay deeply involved in Iraq until a broad set of influential people have strong reason to believe and argue that victory is now – and it isn’t now, nor by most analysts’ best estimate is it likely soon to come.
Conclusion: Lessons from History Are Easily Forgotten and Misapplied
In the December 4th New York Times op-ed piece, Ted Sorensen and Arthur Schlesinger Jr. argue that President Bush should take a cue from a beloved President of whom we’ve been long-bereft: John F. Kennedy, in his belief and gradual articulation of how the United States must get out of Vietnam. Without getting into the ongoing counterfactual debate of “what Kennedy would have done,” it is useful to illustrate (which Sorensen and Schlesinger hint at but don’t fully address) how tied Kennedy’s hands really were in the unraveling situation in Southeast Asia, and how incremental military escalation in the region almost irrecoverably bound the United States to stay out its bloody intervention under President Johnson. As they write of one option available to Kennedy: “Renege on the previous Eisenhower commitment, which Kennedy had initially reinforced, to help the beleaguered government of South Vietnam with American military instructors and advisors? No, he knew the American people would not permit him to do that.” Beneath Kennedy’s sense that the American people would not permit a withdrawal, lies a clear (and elsewhere-documented) concern that withdrawal would undermine his candidacy for a second term. He was committed – and commitments are hard to break, for reasons of credibility internationally, as well as domestically. Bush is now likewise committed, and this commitment may very well bind the hands of all those who can reasonably hope to succeed Bush in 2008. Bound to "victory."
Posted by Sam Hodges at 11:02 PM
