I've never really understood why Democrats are supposed to have a singular plan to Completely Fix Iraq. The president has virtually uninhibited power to make foreign policy, including armed conflict, and "what would you do about Iraq" is a pretty silly question for a Congressional candidate, much less an entire party delegation. The most reasonable answer from a Democrat would be the goal of providing oversight and checks and balances to a dissembling and opaque administration, yet criticism of Bush's policy is constantly met with cries of, "Well what's the Democratic alternative?!?" Until '08, our elected officials are stuck with writing strongly-worded letters (and perhaps, after November, holding some meaningful hearings). In the meantime, can we talk about the fact that the Republicans, who, y'know, control every branch of the federal government, don't have a plan? And since they're actually running things, that seems to me slightly more problematic.
Or maybe they do have a plan. Neocon John Podhoretz recently penned a stunning and despicable op-ed in the New York Post that cowardly hid his position, basically that we should kill all Sunnis between the ages of 15 and 35, behind endless "rhetorical" questions (not a single declarative statement!). Rachel Kleinfeld absolutely shreds it in a great post at TPMCafe. The point that killing innocent civilians is both immoral and unbelievably bad strategy should be obvious, but for some reason it needs to be repeated. Read the whole thing. Money quote:
The only way guerrilla wars have ever been won is by gaining the support of civilians so that they turn over the killers hiding among them--and that has never been done by killing the innocent indiscriminately. Karl Rove and his cronies pride themselves on divisive wedge strategies domestically--why can't they understand the need for one in the war against terror?What on earth are the Republican values for foreign policy? How can a party call itself pro-life domestically and be for "constructive chaos" abroad? Democratic foreign policy values are clear, and they're smartly elucidated by the Truman National Security Project, which I'm (full disclosure) involved with and of which Rachel is the Director. Republicans have tried to co-opt democracy promotion, classically a lefty position, but their method of implementation is more like anarchy promotion, and the very concept of human rights seems to be beyond them. For a handy comparison, here's a cheat sheet: Democrats, Kosovo; Republicans, Iraq. Democrats who believe in strong security and defense aren't Republican-lite (as I think I've demonstrated on this site), we just recognize that there's a bad way and a good way to practice internationalism. Change . . . the . . . course.
