2004 election is a referendum on decision to go to war
By Howard Fineman
NEWSWEEK WEB EXCLUSIVE
msnbc.com
Aug. 20 — Mark the day: The blast that rocked the U.N. headquarters in Baghdad was more than a massacre of innocents. It also was a tipping point in American politics.
NOW WE KNOW for certain that the 2004 election will be, virtually to the exclusion of anything else, a referendum on President Bush’s decision to go Iraq—and a debate over whether doing so made us safer, or put us in greater danger, in the war on global terrorism.
For the White House, this is a case of “be careful what you wish for.” As was made clear on the deck of the Abe Lincoln, they want to run Bush for re-election as the Man in the Flight Suit. But now it’s not clear whether that garment was a coronation robe or a straitjacket.
The events in Baghdad (and Jerusalem) make it clear that the news from Iraq is likely to remain unsettling for the foreseeable future. Voters have been growing more dubious about the war in Iraq; that process is likely to be accelerated by pictures of carnage on cable news and the front pages. True, Richard Nixon won re-election in the midst of the unpopular Vietnam War in 1972. But Nixon touted his “secret peace plan.” Bush isn’t going to be able to offer the hope of peace any time soon. Terrorism doesn’t work that way.
NOT SO FAST
The Baghdad bombing isn’t necessarily good news for the Democrats, though. “War-time” presidents do tend to win re-election, even in the midst of divisive wars. Americans are naturally inclined to back their leader in the heat of battle. And the Democrats’ experience from 1972 isn’t a happy one: Their anti-war nominee, George McGovern, lost 49 states.
Bush’s May 1 visit to the USS Abraham Lincoln fit right in with his handlers’ plans to position him as a strong commander in chief. But will that plan backfire?
One thing for sure: This is going to be perhaps the nastiest election in recent memory. Bush’s allies already are accusing his foes of “treason,” even as Democrats accuse him of sending Americans to die in the desert to burnish his image as a cocksure commander in chief.
Another sure thing: Wes Clark is in. The retired general and Rhodes Scholar increasingly looks like a seer for his pre-war comments. Go back and read what he had to say in the months leading up to the invasion of Iraq. (Any of the Clark for President grassroots Web sites will do.) Clark, who was leaning toward running in any case, almost certainly can’t now resist the chance to say “I told you so.” And, more than any other possible Democratic candidate (with the exception of John Kerry), Clark could brush off the soft-on-defense rhetoric that GOP oppo experts are preparing to throw at the Democratic Party.
Bush is in a politically tricky position. Most credible observers think we need more American troops in Iraq, but sending them would signal to American voters that the war will be more costly, in blood and treasure, than predicted. Getting reinforcements from other nations would require a new U.N. resolution—and require the ceding of American control to the same look-the-other-way crowd that let Saddam Hussein run rampant in the first place.
The White House is preparing to run Bush as a steely leader, above the fray, concentrating on the big picture. But the big picture is that Iraq of today is becoming the Afghanistan of a quarter-century ago. Then, the invasion by the old Soviet Union spawned a pan-Islamic generation of jihadists. Are we doing the same thing now? Bush will have to answer.
But the Democrats will have to answer questions of their own. Are they for putting more American troops in? (John McCain, the Democrats’ de facto secretary of defense, is for doing so.) Do they want a bigger role for the brave but still politically discredited U.N.? Do they want simply to pull out of Iraq altogether? And, if not, why aren’t they backing the president instead of taking political potshots at the beleaguered leader of the free world?
As I said, it’s going to be a long—and nasty—election. But the issues couldn’t be more profound. We can’t live in a world of truck bombs, and the question is how to ensure we don’t have to.
© 2003 Newsweek, Inc. |
