NEWS: GOP will trumpet preemption doctrine as campaign theme
Posted on Wednesday, November 12 @ 10:00:38 EST
boston.com
By Anne E. Kornblut, Boston Globe
WASHINGTON -- Faced with growing public uneasiness over Iraq, Republican Party officials intend to change the terms of the political debate heading into next year's election by focusing on the "doctrine of preemption," portraying President Bush as a visionary acting to prevent future terrorist attacks on US soil despite the costs and casualties involved overseas.
The strategy will involve the dismissal of Democrats as the party of "protests, pessimism and political hate speech," Ed Gillespie, Republican National Committee chairman, wrote in a recent memo to party officials -- a move designed to shift attention toward Bush's broader foreign policy objectives rather than the accounts of bloodshed. Republicans hope to convince voters that Democrats are too indecisive and faint-hearted -- and perhaps unpatriotic -- to protect US interests, arguing that inaction during the Clinton years led to the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
"The president's critics are adopting a policy that will make us more vulnerable in a dangerous world," Gillespie wrote. "Specifically, they now reject the policy of pre-emptive self-defense and would return us to a policy of reacting to terrorism in its aftermath."
Inviting a fierce foreign policy debate in the months to come, Gillespie continued: "The bombings of the World Trade Center in 1993, Khobar Towers, our embassies in East Africa, and the USS Cole were treated as criminal matters instead of the terrorist acts they were. After Sept. 11, President Bush made clear that we will no longer simply respond to terrorist acts, but will confront gathering threats before they become certain tragedies."
Republican strategists maintain that this tack is consistent with Bush's style: direct, sweeping, and bold to the point of brazenness.
But by going on the offensive on Iraq -- effectively saying "bring 'em on" to his potential Democratic rivals, daring them to question his fundamental foreign policy doctrine in the face of a rising body count -- Bush is taking a measurable political risk. Starting with a major foreign policy address last week, Bush has begun embracing a subject that has proved increasingly problematic for him both in the public dialogue and the polls.
His position is designed to change the conversation from the situation on the ground in Iraq to the philosophical decision of whether to attack prospective supporters of terrorism in the first place. But some strategists and analysts in both parties say he's unlikely to succeed unless the drumbeat of fatalities slows down.
"It seems to me they [Republicans] are benefiting from having the bully pulpit and just repeating their message all the time," former Clinton national security expert Daniel Benjamin said. "But at the end of the day, bad news on the ground trumps all that repetition in Washington. And they have a real problem on their hands squaring those two things."
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