The Nation-The Strategic Class(Dem hawks)

[LiviaOlivia]

The Strategic Class
Ari Berman
Aug 11, 2005
The Nation

~snip~


The prominence of party leaders like Biden and Clinton, and of a slew of other potential prowar candidates who support the US invasion and occupation of Iraq, presents the Democrats with an odd dilemma: At a time when the American people are turning against the Iraq War and favor a withdrawal of US troops, and British and American leaders are publicly discussing a partial pullback, the leading Democratic presidential candidates for '08 are unapologetic war hawks. Nearly 60 percent of Americans now oppose the war, according to recent polling. Sixty-three percent want US troops brought home within the next year. Yet a recent National Journal "insiders poll" found that a similar margin of Democratic members of Congress reject setting any timetable. The possibility that America's military presence in Iraq may be doing more harm than good is considered beyond the pale of "sophisticated" debate.

The continued high standing of the hawks has been made possible by their enablers in the strategic class--the foreign policy advisers, think-tank specialists and pundits. Their presumed expertise gives the strategic class a unique license to speak for the party on national security issues. This group has always been quietly influential, but since 9/11 it has risen in prominence, egging on and underpinning elected officials, crowding out dissenters within its own ranks and becoming increasingly ideologically monolithic. So far its members remain unchallenged. It's more than a little ironic that the people who got Iraq so wrong continue to tell the Democrats how to get it right.

It's helpful to think of the Democratic strategic class as a pyramid. At the top are politicians like Biden and Clinton, forming the most important and visible public face. Just below are high-ranking former government officials, like UN ambassador Richard Holbrooke, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and Assistant Secretary of State Jamie Rubin. These are the people who devise and execute foreign policy and frame the substance of the message. Virtually all the top advisers supported the Iraq War; Holbrooke, who's been dubbed the "closest thing the party has to a Kissinger" by one foreign policy analyst, even tacked to Bush's right, arguing in February 2003 that anything less than an invasion of Iraq would undermine international law. Many of the officials held high-ranking positions in the Kerry campaign. Holbrooke, frequently mentioned as a potential Secretary of State, urged Kerry to keep his vision on Iraq "deliberately vague," the New York Observer reported. Rubin appeared on television sixty times in May 2004 alone. Nine days before the election, Holbrooke addressed the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and reiterated Kerry's support for the war and occupation, belittled European negotiations with Iran on its nuclear program and endorsed the Israeli separation wall. Hardly a Dove Among Dems' Brain Trusters, read a headline from the Forward newspaper.

~snip~


http://news.yahoo.com/s/thenation/20050811/cm_thenation/20050829berman

[ScrappyDem]

1. I have no problem with this

The war with Iraq in all respects was inevitable. However the prosecution of the war and the "Nation Building" and the continued presence is the problem. Sometime after the first month or so the US troop level should have been 25,000 or even much less. The entire effort to rebuild Iraq should have been a UN effort.

Bush's "Go it Alone" policy freezing out much of the European community has completely failed both this country and the rest of the world. Obvious arrogance by Bush and his lies to the UN and to the rest of the world have caused this morass, and an endless "occupation".

The Dems problem is explaining how it could have been done better not necessarily that it shouldn't have been done. Now that the mess has been made it needs to be cleaned up carefully.

[Martin Eden]

5. I have a BIG problem with this

The war in Iraq -- "in all respects" as you say -- was most certainly NOT inevitable, and I have a BIG problem with any elected official who voted to give the Bush administration the authority to make it happen.

The only thing inevitable about the situation in Iraq was that the status quo couldn't be maintained indefinitely. The sanctions killed half a million Iraqi children without dislodging Saddam from power.

The 2003 invasion was a violation of international law and predicated on lies. Our elected officials should have known this, and also been aware that defeating the Iraqi army was the easy part. You say the problem was the "go it alone" policy that froze out much of the European community, and that it should have been a UN effort. The problem with that notion is that the European community opposed the war and it was a violation of the UN Charter.

Bush's war was not the only way to change the status quo in Iraq, and it would not have happened the way it did -- and probably not at all -- if not for the election fraud in Florida and a partisan Supreme Court that put an ignorant ex-drunk with a neoconservative staff in the White House.

Yes, it was vital to have the UN and the Europeans on board for any solution to the problem of Iraq, but a solution based on honesty and international cooperation WOULD NOT have been like Bush's war "in all respects."

This war has been a disaster for the United States, and for Iraq. Anyone who wasn't wary of that 3 years ago is not competent to be at the helm of our nation's foreign policy, and anyone who hasn't learned a lesson from this disasater needs to be publicly repudiated, lest they drag us into more of the same.

[pokercat999]

6. I have no problem with this

as it may lead to the end of the "Democratic" party as we now know it. A real Democratic party may form from the ashes and a real grass roots LIBERAL party may emerge. As things stand there are far too few "leaders" in the Democratic Party that I would actually consider worthy of my vote.

As for the "war", anyone that voted for it is a traitor to the party and America. Anyone that is in Iraq as part of the military is a mercenary and as such (my guess) is not protected by the Geneva convention.

[Name removed]

2. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Hardrada]

3. We had no business invading Iraq.

The sooner we are out the better. Democrats who supported this should also be held accountable at the Hague for crimes of conspiracy and aggression and also put in dungeons for the rest of their lives. I would be happy to stand perpetual guard to make sure none of the GOP and Dem neocon imperialist war criminals ever again see the light of day or breathe the same air we do which they all have done so very much to foul with the stench of war.

[swag]

4. Journalist Laura Rozen highlighed a couple more damning paragraphs

at http://www.warandpiece.com

"Owing to their distinction, the Democratic strategic class, consisting of the party's leading foreign policy thinkers, could have provided a powerful check on a reckless Administration intent on rushing to war. Instead, it bears partial responsibility for the war's costs: more than 1,800 American fatalities, thousands of maimed and wounded US soldiers, many more dead Iraqi civilians, spiraling worldwide anti-Americanism, surging world oil prices, a new breeding ground for Al Qaeda, multiplying terror attacks abroad and mounting economic insecurity at home.

At the same time, talking tough on Iraq has been a disastrous moral, tactical and political miscalculation for Democrats. A recent Democracy Corps poll found that Iraq tops the list of factors motivating voter discontent toward President Bush. "This is a country almost settled on the need for change," political consultants Stan Greenberg and James Carville write. Yet Democrats will only prosper if they pose "sharp choices," something the strategic class has been unwilling or unable to do. A few small progressive think tanks, helped by the dissident establishment, have tried to pry open badly needed institutional space for a bolder national security policy. A few courageous elected officials are attempting to drum up Congressional support for withdrawal. Thus far, the hawks have drowned them out. Unless and until the strategic class transforms or declines in stature, the Democrats beholden to them will be doomed to repeat their Iraq mistakes."