[Dialogue] Needed: Honesty on Iraq

[Jim Rippey]

I believe this to be an unusually astute analysis of dangerous mistakes the
three major presidential candidates are making.  The article doesn’t
identify it, but there is a powerful source causing these mistakes.  It is
the debate censorship imposed by AIPAC, the powerful U.S. lobby that
promotes Israel’s current hard line policies in the Mideast.  In contrast,
that debate is open and public in Israel itself.  Hoagland does make an
oblique reference to this where he states that the candidates do
overestimate their ability to wiggle out of positions that ignore the power
of local forces to limit them to choices ranging from bad to awful.  Like,
more bloodshed in Gaza and in a bloody war with Iran, for instance.

Jim Rippey in Bellevue, NE

 

------------------------------------

Needed: Honesty on Iraq

By Jim Hoagland, WashPost, 3/16/08

HYPERLINK
"http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Iraq?tid=informline"Iraq is
the moral quagmire of the past quarter-century for American presidents and
politicians. Every attempt by our leaders to ignore, manipulate or resolve
with brute force that country's deep conflicts has quickly come back to
haunt its architect with unanticipated consequences and new, agonizing
choices.

So it is no wonder that Americans are weary of having troops in such a place
and are not eager to face up to the bloody dilemmas that an immediate U.S.
withdrawal would spark. Iraqis have always found inventive ways to punish
the indifference, cravenness or rash miscalculations that successive U.S.
leaders have visited on them.

We do not lack reminders of those actions and inactions: Today marks the
20th anniversary of a barbaric chemical weapons attack on Halabja, in Iraqi
HYPERLINK
"http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Kurdistan?tid=informline"Ku
rdistan. That war crime was part of the genocidal campaign by HYPERLINK
"http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Saddam+Hussein?tid=informli
ne"Saddam Hussein that the Reagan and first Bush administrations did little
to prevent or to punish. They reaped Iraq's 1990 invasion of HYPERLINK
"http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Kuwait?tid=informline"Kuwai
t as reward.

HYPERLINK
"http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Bill+Clinton?tid=informline
"Bill Clinton used sanctions and pinprick missile attacks that helped
protect the Kurds and Iraq's Arab neighbors. But those tactics also had the
effect of aiding Hussein in grinding into dust any remaining social cohesion
in the country. HYPERLINK
"http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/George+W.+Bush?tid=informli
ne"George W. Bush's grievously mismanaged occupation -- and blatant
political use of the war issue in the 2004 elections -- undermined his
promises to bring democracy to the Arab world.

The Iraq trap now reaches out to ensnare those Americans who would be
president. It invites HYPERLINK
"http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Hillary+Clinton?tid=informl
ine"Hillary Clinton, HYPERLINK
"http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Barack+Obama?tid=informline
"Barack Obama and HYPERLINK
"http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/John+McCain?tid=informline"
John McCain to be expedient -- instead of being frank -- about the problems
ahead. They are tempted to avoid serious discussion on the campaign trail by
portraying the moral choices on Iraq as easy and clear instead of
acknowledging them as the tangled knots they are. Tactics crowd out strategy
and purpose in such a campaign.

Iraq is not the only foreign policy issue that the candidates are
temporizing on or even shielding from a real discussion with the electorate.
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which balances on the edge of a
devastating explosion, has imposed a similar blanket of conformity on the
three, who compete to portray themselves as HYPERLINK
"http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Israel?tid=informline"Israe
l's truest supporter. They spread land mines along the path of a future
presidency on this as well by not saying the obvious: On this problem, fresh
thinking is badly needed.

Obama and Clinton both recently flunked a symbolically important moral test
on Iraq. They implicitly conspired to gloss over the hard questions on an
American withdrawal that were raised publicly by HYPERLINK
"http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Samantha+Power?tid=informli
ne"Samantha Power, an Obama adviser who was quickly ousted by the campaign
for going way off message in a pair of interviews with British media.

Power's exasperated and hyperbolic description of Hillary Clinton as "a
monster" was featured in the headlines as her firing offense. But Power's
sensible admission to HYPERLINK
"http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/British+Broadcasting+Corpor
ation?tid=informline"BBC television that Obama's tightly scripted Iraq
withdrawal plan is a "best-case scenario" that would be reviewed once he
became president was the more serious problem for her boss. Obama was
immediately accused by Clinton of again promising one thing while planning
another.

Clinton could have used Power's remarks on Iraq -- which actually parallel
the HYPERLINK
"http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/New+York?tid=informline"New
York senator's description of what she would do as president -- as an
occasion for a serious exchange with Obama and with the voters. Instead she
took the easy route of going for transitory political advantage.

But Obama comes off even worse. He lacked the moral courage to defend
Power's realistic and sagacious statements. His retreat instead inflates the
idea that he is chaining himself to his campaign rhetoric if he gets to the
HYPERLINK
"http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/The+White+House?tid=informl
ine"Oval Office, come what may.

He shouldn't, and I would guess that he won't. But like Clinton, and like
the past four U.S. presidents, Obama may overestimate his ability to wiggle
out of positions that ignore the power of local forces to limit him to
choices that range from bad to awful.

John McCain's heavy emphasis on the military tactics of the surge providing
a clear "victory" runs these same risks. Such a narrow approach also skirts
serious discussion of the moral obligations and dilemmas that Iraq still
poses for Americans. McCain would do well to turn those obligations into a
major theme for the fall general election race.

Getting elected is the priority objective of these three politicians, of
course. But they and their followers cannot afford to believe that walking
away from difficult positions comes cost-free. Insulting the future is a
particularly dangerous exercise in Iraq.

HYPERLINK "mailto:jimhoagland at washpost.com"jimhoagland at washpost.com

© 2008 The Washington Post Company


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