Fog of War
by Andrew Sullivan
Only at TNR Online
Post date: 10.27.03
[ Editor's Note: In what follows, TNR Senior Editor Andrew Sullivan deconstructs some of the comments made at Sunday's Democratic debate in Detroit. ]
The foreign policy views of Wesley Clark and John Kerry deserve special consideration because both men represent what is supposed to be a foreign policy realism among Democrats. They're not Howard Dean or Dennis Kucinich or Al Sharpton. But that makes Sunday night's rhetorical cheapness, nitpicking, and Tuesday-morning quarterbacking all the more frustrating.
Take Kerry's response to the following question:
[FOX NEWS MODERATOR CARL] CAMERON: Senator Kerry, I want to direct the next question to you, in part because you voted for the Iraq resolution but have also opposed the $87 billion. To many, that speaks to an inconsistency that your candidacy has been criticized by, for having a difficult to explain position on the Iraq war.
Is it inconsistent for you to support the resolution and not the reconstruction money?
KERRY: Not in the least. In fact, it is absolutely consistent, because what I voted for was to hold Saddam Hussein accountable but to do it right.
But the Iraq Resolution was clearly designed to sanction war if Saddam Hussein didn't fully and immediately comply with U.N. resolution, i.e. fully disarm or account for those weapons he had not accounted for. The congressional resolution wasn't some generic statement designed merely to put pressure on Saddam. It was a declaration of conditional war. Everyone understood that at the time. Kerry is spinning history to pretend otherwise.
KERRY: This president has done it wrong every step of the way. He promised that he would have a real coalition. He has a fraudulent coalition.
Fraudulent? How was fraud involved? The United States was quite open to anyone participating in a coalition of the willing to topple Saddam and remove the threat from WMDs. The invitation was open, candid, and answered by many countries, including several who are longtime allies of the U.S., notably Britain, Australia, Japan, and Poland. The Bush administration didn't condition war against Saddam on getting a universal coalition, or even on getting a precise and blanket U.N. sanction. So why the term "fraudulent"? Is Kerry implying that the alliance that formed against Nazi Germany--Britain, the U.S., Australia--was also somehow fraudulent? And is it prudent for a potential future president to belittle America's firmest allies in this way? The best gloss on his remarks is that Kerry only voted to authorize war because he believed that everything would go right for the United States, that no one would object at the Security Council, that Saddam would suddenly comply, or some other such Pollyannish scenario. If that's how he voted, then he lacks very basic common sense about how the world actually operates.
KERRY: He promised he would go through the United Nations and honor the inspections process. He did not.
In September 2002, president Bush directly went to the United Nations and made an appeal to enforce U.N. resolutions with regard to Iraq. He supported the last attempt of U.N. inspectors to win a last-minute agreement from Saddam for transparent disarmament. He won a 15-0 U.N. Security Council vote on U.N. Resolution 1441, sanctioning dire consequences if Iraq did not comply with inspections. Kerry's statement is therefore a bold and simple untruth.
KERRY: He promised he would go to war as a last resort, words that mean something to me as a veteran. He did not.
Well, what does Kerry mean as a last resort? Saddam was obliged by the truce in 1991 to abandon all WMD programs, planned and actual. He didn't. As the Kay report shows, he maintained a structure for the research and manufacture of WMDs all the way through the 1990s. He refused to comply with U.N. inspections or to account for the stockpiles the U.N. had documented in his possession. After twelve years of sanctions, after several months of final efforts to get Saddam to comply, after yet another U.N. resolution, Saddam still balked. If this was not a "last resort," what is?
KERRY: He broke every promise. He's done it wrong.
And he's even doing this wrong, because what he ought to be doing is internationalizing this effort--going to the United Nations, asking the United Nations to take part in a larger way, which they would be willing to do if he was prepared to shift real authority to them.
You have to take the target off of American troops. You have to get rid of the sense of American occupation. And that's the only way to invite other countries to be part of this.
Kerry seems unaware that the United States has been trying doggedly (and with some success) to get other countries to provide troops for the transition to post-totalitarian Iraqi government. He doesn't mention president Bush's address to the United Nations requesting help. He also seems unaware that the U.N. is both unwilling and unable to mount the kind of security operation now needed. They could not even defend their own compound, let alone secure the entire country. As for taking the target off American troops, this is a war. Of course American troops are targets for the enemy. The difference between now and three years ago is that American troops--and not civilians--are now the main object in the war on terror, a war that Kerry seems all too eager to call off. Later in the debate, Kerry argued exactly that: that he would end the war on terror as it has been waged by the Bush administration and return to the methods of the Clinton administration. He said: "I believe Americans want somebody who can defend the security of the United States. And this war on terror is far less of a military operation and far more of an intelligence-gathering, law-enforcement operation. And the American people deserve somebody who can lead them to do it correctly and make us safer and stronger in the process." That's a clear distinction. And it's one that will be central in the coming election.
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