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Kerry moves bushward on iraq { April 20 2004 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.newsday.com/news/opinion/ny-vppin203764911apr20,0,364417.columnhttp://www.newsday.com/news/opinion/ny-vppin203764911apr20,0,364417.column
Kerry moves Bush-ward on Iraq
James P. Pinkerton
April 20, 2004
The irony of John Kerry's presidency - if there is to be one - is that while the senator might be elected because of unrest over the Iraq war, he would be likely to carry on George W. Bush's Iraq policies. The main difference is that Kerry's Iraq policy would lack the idealism of Bush's.
In three major appearances in the past week - a speech in New York City, an op-ed in The Washington Post and an appearance Sunday on "Meet the Press" - Kerry described Bush's Iraq policy as "stunningly ineffective." But, he said, as president he would "persevere" in the mission of making Iraq "stable, peaceful and pluralistic."
So what does Kerry have in mind when he touts a "smarter way" for Iraq? His plan has two elements. First, he would seek greater political help from the United Nations and the military participation of NATO. Second, he would emphasize "stability" as a goal higher than "democracy."
Let's consider these points in turn. First, are the UN and NATO really inclined to do more in Iraq? After all, key players of both organizations opposed the war; that's why the United States invaded without a UN resolution and without NATO. So have the events of the past year persuaded countries such as France, Germany and Russia that they were wrong? Spain just announced that it is leaving ahead of schedule, and reports suggest that other nations, too, are thinking about packing it up.
Indeed, the Coalition of Those Willing Actually To Fight never consisted of more than two nations, the United States and Great Britain. The leaders of other countries sent troops to Iraq mostly because Uncle Sam cashed in lots of chits. Even so, those leaders had to promise their unwilling publics that the troops would be for peacekeeping purposes only. Now that it's a hot war, the issue is who wants to stay put, not who wants to send more. Kerry has a self-serving solution: "It may well be that we need a new president." But think about it: If Kerry is president in 2005, that means the old president was defeated by bad news from Iraq. What signal will that election loss send to other foreign leaders?
About all that remains of Kerry's "smart" strategy, then, is his downplaying of a democratic future for Iraq. Noting that the Democratic candidate did not use the word "democracy" in his Washington Post op-ed, The New Republic's Peter Beinart worries that Kerry is backing away from the "democratic universalism" of the last decade - the bipartisan notion that the peoples of the world all yearned to be more like America. Bush himself once expressed hostility to this view, but now he has the zeal of the convert: "As the greatest power on the face of the Earth, we have an obligation to help the spread of freedom."
Kerry, perhaps because he remembers the Vietnam War - launched by the sort of Kennedyesque "bear any burden" speechifying that Bush embraced four decades later - is skeptical about blank-check rhetoric. Says the senator of Iraqi democracy: "It doesn't have to be, at least in the early days, the kind of democracy this administration has talked about." Translation: Let's get the place under control, and then we'll worry about elections.
But the problem with Kerry's position is that it chips away at the last real argument for invading Iraq in the first place. That is, if there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, if there was no 9/11 connection, and if we're not there to bring democracy to Iraq, then what, exactly, are we doing there?
"I don't believe in a cut- and-run philosophy," declares Kerry. And most Americans probably agree with that position, although Kerry's Bush-ward shift to the right will give credence - and maybe votes - to left-wing protest candidate Ralph Nader. Still, if Kerry becomes president and his top goal is simply to keep control of Iraq - and then not "lose" it while thinking, maybe, about winning re-election - will that approach really be sustainable among Americans as the fighting drags on over the rest of the decade?
James P. Pinkerton's e-mail ad- dress is pinkerto@ix.netcom.com.
Copyright © 2004, Newsday, Inc.
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