Let me say this about the other
Barack Obama and my son Nathaniel, who graduates college next week, have taught me (through speeches and essays, respectively) to recognize that if and when the election of 2008 produces a president who withdraws Americans from Iraq, it will be vital that Americans not repeat the finger-pointing, hate-mongering, and blame-assigning politics of the post-Vietnam period.
The withdrawal will be, if it ever happens, extraordinarily dangerous for people in Iraq and for stock markets and economic conditions around the world. It will be filled with scenes of horror and many in the mainstream media will immediately try to drag down any American president who is in office during this very difficult transition.
Some Presidents may buckle, and decide to bomb, or re-occupy. Some may so fear the reaction that they decline to withdraw. Some, like the President today, may believe that peace and security lie just around time's corner and so we should march on.
But if the United States brings its occupation to an end, we will need, to borrow a phrase, a uniter and not a divider in the White House. We will need someone who can live the ethic of having malice toward none, and charity toward all. This is a high role because when politics slides over to true cultural leadership, many of the normal tactics of politics have to be left in the drawer.
This transition to high leadership is, I think, what Senator Obama is talking about. I don't think he is by any means the only person who can aim in this direction, but he is a distinctive voice on the topic.
Congrats to Nathaniel and happy graduation!
I don't think a Democratic president can withdraw from Iraq. If they can't even put timetables in a funding bill, no way any Dem will risk being known as "the one who lost the war in Iraq."
May 23, 2007 6:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
It is a shame that such a peace filled, pleasant place as Iraq is today can be expected to change to a place where dozens, if not hundreds of Iraqis get killed every night, and ordinary Iraqis are afraid to be out on the streets. All because US troops are withdrawn. Maybe we should just continue to stay there maintaining the peace that the Iraqis are now experiencing.
Hoppy in Sacramento
May 23, 2007 7:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
Let's get real. The right wing is already polishing up its 'stabbed in the back' meme. The war is lost, but the excuse machine is in full bloom.
When things finally blow up and go down, when America is driven out in disgrace, its armies shattered, the people responsible for it will be playing the victims.
Two years after the war, they'll be screaming about how liberals destroyed America, rewriting the history books, and moaning about 'Tehran Hillary.'
May 23, 2007 7:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
I appreciate the sentiment, but by what miraculous convergence of events will this high leadership occur? If the Republicans have proved one thing time and again in the last seven years, it's that the campaign is everything. It is all they know how to do and they know it well. They cannot govern because the skills for winning and governing are so different. They have the skills only for the one, so they campaign constantly, hoping people will mistake it for governing.
Look what they did to Kerry by fighting the Vietnam War all over again and blaming him for the outcome. Even after 25 years they weren't done with it as a campaign issue. Then they get themselves into a Republican version of it and you can bet they already have it mapped out how they will blame the Dems for the loss, dust themselves off, and make up for the 2006 and likely 2008 setbacks. But GOVERN? Never. Nor will they let anyone else. To actually govern is for losers. Taking responsibility for failed policies for the sake of the nation is also for losers. As the Dems set themselves up to do so, they will become losers. Hell, after today, they already have that whiff about them.
Short of a catastrophe that involves a critical mass of the population, there is no place in American politics for high-minded leadership accept, perhaps, on the margins. We will continue rolling in the dubious luxury of the wasteful incomptence that, apparently, we figure we can afford.
Lincoln was an abberration. 600,000 Americans had to die before his second inaugural could make any real sense. Our low level distress is not nearly such a sobering experience. Rather, we'll ask for our fix of vicious partisan junk and lies. The system will not disappoint. High leadership is weak stuff, man. No rush.
Pantheon
May 23, 2007 9:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yep, which is exactly why the Dems will never withdraw from Iraq.
May 23, 2007 9:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
No, that's why the whole thing will end in disgrace.
May 23, 2007 10:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
Iraq and the middle east in general is seriously broken and has been that way for a far longer time than the U.S. has been in existence. The current mess belongs solely to George Bush and the Iraqi people. The United States cannot fix this without an exceptional committment in lives and dollars. It is fairly well established that the American people are not willing to continue in this ridiculous folly.
The suggestion we have an obligation to fix something that has been broken for so long a time is total crap. We don't. By U.S. perspectives, most middle east nations, their governments, the social, ethnic and religious viewpoints of the citizens vary so dramatically with ours I see absolutely no sense in pursuing this. All we contribute is another ideological slant that in no way aids in resolving the age old dilemmas of the region. Our perspective, that is so in contrast, only muddies things up even more. The nonstop fighting and conflict that has been going on for centuries isn't going to be fixed by us. Simply by being there we are part of the problem. Walk away. And so what if they continue to kill each other. How is that any different than what has been the historical status quo? This is not ours to fix. Get that through your head Reed.
May 24, 2007 3:37 AM | Reply | Permalink
no way any Dem will risk being known as "the one who lost the war in Iraq."
as "Ron Paul" noted in the Republican debates, peace comes through trade, not war, and he pointed to Vietnam as proof.
to me, "winning the war" means showing the Iraqis that we trust them enough to run their own country because, just like we protest here, I'm sure that many Iraqis are saying: "we want our country back."
in my mind, winning the war means that the US stops killing more Iraqis. At this point, over 1.5 million deaths are on our hands and peace is supposed to be about de-esculation of violence.
As "Ron Paul" recently observed, the "republican party used to be the anti-war party" since the republicans were known for their role in "ending wars."
i.e., the republicans attained their power by being rational (ending wars) and, if the democrats make note of this fact, and act in their best interest, everyone will win!
To boldly go...
May 24, 2007 6:35 AM | Reply | Permalink
The GOP has really done it to themselves with the Iraq war, and the tin ear that they focused on/at the democrats is now ringing painfully with cries of 'we told you so', and now they're going to try to find a way to hang the entire sad misadventure around the democrats' necks.
My view is, the dems should, as a body, take a big push-back from the table, and let the GOPer's and their neocon hangers-on reap the full karma of their hubris, stock market be damned, especially the stock market, because that's part of the problem here. Yes, stoking up the war machine practically mints money, but is it moral? The answer is 'no', and the global negativity that this whole thing has now fomented towards our country as a whole is going to end up costing a lot more, long-term, than was accomplished in the doing of the thing.
Also, Barack has expressed his desire to go forth and promote influence etc., what none of em really want to look at is the home front, there's poverty and crime and violence on our own streets, but taking issue with that would be like, being effective and stuff, and you can't have that, now.
Let's have less national debt, less with the lofty promises, and more dialogues with other countries as to their own plans to solve their own problems, and a new emphasis in Washington on doing the same in our own country, starting with that whole debt business. When do we talk about that? When it hits 13 trillion, 15 trillion, 20 trillion dollars, when the interest on the debt becomes greater than that which is spent on defense? Somebody's gotta pull the brake lever eventually, hopefully anyone seeking office has brought their grit with them to be equal to the task of mandating a balanced budget, and a lot wiser policies on a lot of domestic issues. Energy independence is at the forefront, too, oil imports are another 'componement' of this, and there's such a thing as being too close to a problem to be able to really effectively solve it, so no more oil company candidates, please. A reform candidate has to be squeaky-clean, too, and it's questionable as to whether Mr. Obama, or the others in the running, fully meet that criteria.
Bribery, payola, and patronage have been the hallmarks of D.C. business-as-usual for years, now, and cleaning up Washington is a prerequisite for any other policy changes....
May 24, 2007 6:38 AM | Reply | Permalink
New thought and new direction can be the Democratic brand if they really want it. The Iraq war and occupation have proven again that traditional means of warfare do not work. Fear, hatred and killing creates fear, hatred and killing; nothing more. Right now, that's all there is. We must supplant it.
Dems must to come up with a compassionate solution to end the madness and revert from killing to healing: Outside the box thinking...create instead of destroy...love instead of fear...there are myriads of new possibilities just waiting to be attempted.
How about converting the hugely expensive new US embassy into a hospital, mosque and/or school? How about putting all our money into Iraqi basic-human-needs infrastructure and create jobs to rebuild their country. Give hope to the people instead of hoping against hope that fear and more killing can resolve the matter.
The US under right-minded thinking, compassion and new leadership can change the paradigm of war into a paradigm of peace. Let's begin to think with our generous hearts rather than greedy egos.
Having a bully pulpit election cycle and Presidency will allow these ideas to take hold.
May 24, 2007 6:46 AM | Reply | Permalink
It has already ended in disgrace. Admitting that is the problem.
May 24, 2007 7:11 AM | Reply | Permalink
I think Reed's got this wrong. If we get a Democrat into the White House and they have the guts to get us out of Iraq, then we need to circle the wagons around that president and protect whoever it is from the vicious attack that the reoughly 30 percent of the country who will support the war no matter what and who would support George Bush even if he went to each of their homes and killed their puppies.
We should prepare for something worse than the assault on the Clinton White House in the 1990s.
Also, blame does need to be assigned. If only for history's sake, we have to root out and expose everything that led to this war. We can't let people off the hook in the name of reconciliation. Not in this case.
thosethingswesay.blogspot.com
May 24, 2007 7:14 AM | Reply | Permalink
30% of the country and 90% of the media.
The question is, as you say, will Dems cave again and again like they are poised to do in Congress today, or will we finally stand up and fight back.
May 24, 2007 8:21 AM | Reply | Permalink
What a charade it is to say that withdrawing from Iraq is to lose the war. "Losing" this war or any war is most honestly related to the cost the participants are made to bear. The U.S. has paid nowhere near what Iraqis have paid for this fiasco. We haven't lost. Even if we walked away from this tomorrow the relative cost to the people of Iraq compared to the people of the United States isn't even close. It is obvious when you are in a fight, if one participant is far more seriously bloodied or harmed, who the victor is. Consider the neocons who are crazy about the idea of winning this war. I ask you, "What is it they want winning to look like"? How many U.S. and Iraqi citizens need to die before they have had their fill?
May 24, 2007 8:58 AM | Reply | Permalink
Maybe we need to let the world know about that crazy uncle we keep hidden away so well. You know the one I mean? I mean the fact that our country will not let go of Iraq until Iraq gives up their oil to some of our corporations. There are billions, if not trillions of dollars to be made off of that oil, and we want it. We want it badly. We want it so badly we are willing to sacrifice thousands of our soldiers to get it. The "we" I am referring to includes all of us, because we are all obsessed with gasoline prices. Kill our soldiers, but don't raise our gas prices, is our motto. Hey, does this mean that crazy uncle is us?
Hoppy in Sacramento
May 24, 2007 12:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
Reed is building in an assumption that actually has not been tested. Is the US military on a daily basis a net security benefit to the Iraqi people?
I don't see that that case has been made. Which is doubly troubling because the assertion that it is is largely being made by people that were profoundly wrong in their analysis going in. Having screwed up "Cakewalk" why should I possibly accept any analysis about the endgame of withdrawel.
There is more than a whiff of White Man's Burden that floats throught this debate. We "can't leave now" Pottery Barn proponents need to explain how Baghdad would be worse off, not just assume it. Why not assume that an American withdrawel would result in a violent but brief processs of forced separation and a political accomodation that recognizes Shi'ia demographic majorities? Would that process be more or less violent that continuing the status quo? I don't know.
What I do know is that a lot of former war supporters are frantically trying to justify that retroactively and a lot of Pottery Barn assertions are accompanying that.
The United Army was never trained or equipped for Occupation and our overly violent force protection rules rolling in and the violent and invasive search and assault tactics sense show every signs of failure.
No one likes to think that an Iranian backed Sadrist Iraq could be more peaceful more quickly than one that is US backed. Among other things it would make pretty much every death after Saddam's capture a waste, on both sides. But I don't see any reason a priori to assert the opposite position. To me that concedes too much ground to the War Party.
May 24, 2007 12:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
May Nathaniel and Obama both watch and learn.
No defeat is ever taken well even when the loser smiles and shakes hands and congratulates the winner.
The Democrats do nevertheless have the chance to impose their mark on the country in the same way DeGaulle managed in France in the grand manner by standing tall in acknowledging the face of defeat. Obama's way is precisely the wrong way.
Best, Terry
May 27, 2007 4:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
First off, let me say THIS about that: Obama wants to continue with the global influence-peddling, he's a welfare-check-dealing socialist, and furthermore, whatever consequences come from ending the Iraq 'war'(SHOW me a formal declaration of war by Congress, Bush is waaaaay past his 90 days or whatever) will have to be bravely endured, as will the consequences of the impeachment hearings that the democrats have collectively been too limp-wristed to convene, thus far. A lot of people that came into office in Congress in 06 did so pretty much on the express expectation that they'd be unifying in an effort to end the Iraq war. Sur-prise, sur-prise, sur-prise, they've folded up like a cheap kite.
Halliburton wants the oil underneath the Iraqis' feet. Think about that, really really really really really really really hard, now...
May 29, 2007 3:26 AM | Reply | Permalink
Are you trying to tell us that Obama's one of those non-DLC nutcases that doesn't support our meritocracy that rewards inherited wealth and privilege and is the only class to deserve welfare as in the case of the Bushes?
I am truly shocked.
Best, Terry
May 29, 2007 3:48 AM | Reply | Permalink