Iraq: The Wrong 'Wedge Issue'
By E. J. Dionne Jr.
Friday, October 31, 2003; Page A25
In debate after debate, Democratic presidential candidates pile on President Bush for his Iraq policy. They challenge his veracity in making the case for war and attack the chaos that has taken hold since Saddam Hussein's army melted away.
The media, so kind to Bush in the months after Sept. 11, 2001, got their edge back. The current cover of Newsweek is not what the administration ever expected to see. "Bush's $87 Billion Mess," blares a headline that also points to "Waste, Chaos and Cronyism" in the rebuilding of Iraq. If Republicans were not in control of Congress, the magazine's devastating findings would prompt elaborate hearings and investigations.
It's obvious that Bush is in trouble, so now there is a new cry: If Democrats think Bush's policy is so bad, what are their alternatives?
Since the first function of an opposition in a democracy is to oppose, you could make a case that the Democrats don't need an alternative as long as their criticisms of Bush are grounded in fact. After all, the opposition didn't decide to wage war and take over Iraq -- Bush did.
But it's still a fair question, especially since so many Democrats voted for the war resolution. And voters will eventually want to know what Democrats will do. Yesterday, a group of Democratic foreign policy specialists organized by the Progressive Policy Institute offered a manifesto that is the first draft of an answer.
The document is important for many reasons. The group that signed it is made up of relatively hawkish Democrats who were sympathetic to an aggressive policy against Saddam Hussein and still believe that the Middle East and the world "are better off now that this barbaric dictator is gone." The statement was put together by the think tank affiliated with the Democratic Leadership Council, a centrist group that has been highly critical of Democratic presidential front-runner Howard Dean and his antiwar views.
It is a sign of the deepening partisan split over Iraq that the hawkish signers of this statement joined the Democratic consensus in their tough criticisms of Bush. They argue that the threat from Hussein was "less imminent than the administration claimed and that the United States should have done much more to win international backing and better prepare for postwar reconstruction."
"Instead of mobilizing our friends and isolating our enemies," the manifesto declares, "this administration is isolating the United States from the rest of the world, squandering the good will and alliances built up over decades by successive U.S. leaders. American military strength is at an all-time high, but our moral authority around the world is at an all-time low."
In proposing an alternative approach to foreign policy, the document calls for "progressive internationalism." It offers specific ideas on curbing weapons proliferation, improving homeland security and reorganizing the military for the new tasks it faces. Its authors identify with the policies of Harry Truman, who built strong international institutions to combat the threat of communism after World War II. The idea is that there is nothing "soft" about believing the United States needs friends.
"We see no contradiction between national strength and international cooperation," the authors declare. "We should make it more attractive for foreign leaders to build alliances with us in the world than to build electoral campaigns at home premised on anti-Americanism."
The authors endorse "a robust military presence in Iraq for as long as it takes to help that country achieve security and stability." But they argue that the United States should "not allow arrogance or ideology to stand in the way of forging a broad coalition to bear the burden of peacekeeping, governance and reconstruction in Iraq."
"The surest way to isolate America -- and call into being anti-American coalitions," they declare, "is to succumb to the imperial temptation and attempt to impose our will on others."
What's striking about this document is not only that it lays the groundwork for an alternative foreign policy vision to Bush's. It also demonstrates, as its authors say, that if Bush had not turned national security into "a partisan wedge issue," there would have been room for a wide consensus on confronting terrorism and advancing democracy worldwide.
Bush never expected to get a hearing from foreign policy doves. Now he has lost many hawks who might have supported him. They cannot understand why his administration prepared so badly for the occupation of Iraq, why it was so ready to alienate allies and why it didn't prepare Americans for how costly its ambitions would prove to be. This is a political problem for Bush. It's a tragedy for the country he leads.
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