George Will on Iraq (JK not mentioned, but spit out the point George!)

[ProSense]

George Will

No 'Eisenhower' moment due for Bush in Iraq

September 3, 2006

BY GEORGE WILL

Snip...

Warner joined the Navy in 1944 at 17, served until 1946, then was called up to the Marine Corps during Korea. Because he is a military man who broadly construes the president's inherent powers as commander in chief, it was startling when he recently said that the Oct. 11, 2002, resolution authorizing the use of force against Iraq did so for purposes that were largely achieved by the removal of Saddam Hussein's regime. Last month Warner asked:

''What is the mission of the United States today under this resolution if erupts into a civil war? . . . I think we have to examine very carefully what Congress authorized the president to do in the context of a situation if we're faced with all-out civil war and whether we have to come back to the Congress to get further indication of support.''

But Warner knows that no Senate vote is apt to determine war policy. On July 25, 1967, President Lyndon Johnson, meeting with Democratic committee chairmen, was angered when they questioned his Vietnam policy. Johnson told them: ''If you want me to get out of Vietnam, then you have the prerogative of taking out the resolution'' -- the Tonkin Gulf resolution -- ''under which we are out there now. You can repeal it tomorrow.'' Every war ends, but none ends that way.

Snip...

Warner thinks most congressional Democrats understand that there is an unpopular way to oppose an unpopular war -- by voting for abandonment of all the objectives for which blood has been shed. Warner defines the U.S. objective in Iraq not in terms of a glittering achievement, democracy, but as avoiding something appalling -- the Iraqi oil fields in jihadists' hands. Regarding Iraq, there will not soon be an Eisenhower moment.

http://www.suntimes.com/output/will/cst-edt-geo03.html

What's Will trying to say: Congress didn't authorize this illegal war? Regime change wasn't part of the deal? The war is about oil?


E&P assessment:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=2809120&mesg_id=2809314

[TayTay]

1. That Sen. John Warner is torn about this war

and that he knows that Bush will not ever change course as Eisenhower did in Korea, no matter what. Warner's statement at the recent hearing that Rumsfeld and the Generals attended was a startling moment. Warner is no dove. That he might entertain a notion to revisit the IWR in light of an Iraq in civil war is a threatening notion.

The GOP is changing tactics on how they will challenge the Dems this fall. the 'cut and run' thing is dying away, it is even hurting Repubs in their fall races. So Will is test-marketing a new approach, that of scaring people by saying that the US is all that stands between the radical religious terrrorists and some of the richest oil fields on the planet.

The GOP is pivoting and trying to find new language that works for them. I think it's too late for that, but there it is. Remember, all fear, all the time, is all they have to run on.

[ProSense]

2. Excellent points!

The GOP is definitely engaged in "test-marketing a new approach."

[TayTay]

3. There job is to make Iraq central to the 'War on Terra'

and make the American people, or at least the Americans who vote, believe that Iraq is indeed the vital center of the effort to stop global terrorism. This is a massive divide between Democrats, especially Sen. Kerry, and the Republicans. (Ahm, even if Republicans are no longer cheerleading this.)

The Repubs have no choice but to back this war. No choice at all. However, they are trying to invent wiggle room by pushing the idea that 'abandoning Iraq,' in their cynical phrasing, will mean that we are conceding the 'war' to the terrorists. The 'war' on terrorism is largely something that is done outside of America and the Repubs are pushing the idea that unless we deal with foreign threats on foreign shores, we will have to deal with domestic threats because the terrorists will, in their words, follow us home.

This is a very important distinction for the fall elections. The Republicans conceive of terrorism as something that lives primarily outside of the US and something that has to be stopped before it 'comes home.' They have committed an enormous amount of man-power, money and equipment to their foreign policy belief that the 'war' in not in the US but is elsewhere and must be fought elsewhere. That is their vision of what terrorism is, a foreign force that can be eliminated at the source with strong military action and committment of military resources and man-power. They can't cut funding, they can't back off, they can't pivot and re-strategize. This is their philosphy.

The Democrats view terrorism as a tactic that can certainly be used here in the US by either foreign or domestic sympathizers of extremist movements. (Terrorism exists without a state to back it. This is critical in the thinking.) Sen. Kerry has tirelessly worked to get the Administration and the Republicans to recognize that we are fighting this 'war' at home and we are not defending outselves very well. We haven't implemented the 9/11 Commission recommendations on how to safeguard ourselves from terrorism at home, we aren't doing anything real about border security, we aren't safeguarding America at our vulnerable points from an enemy that has already struck us domestically. This is a very different take than the ones the Repubs are advocating.

The Republicans believe that a 'victory' in Iraq is a way of ending the terrorist threat. The believed in a version of the domino theory when they proposed the attack; the US would be so overwhelming in victory that we would scare the nations that sponsor terrorism into accepting our will and implementing democratic reforms. (That has been proven wrong.) Sen. Kerry, and many other Democrats, just simply don't buy this argument. (Terrorism is not always or even primarily, state-sponsored.) We can't just use the military to defeat this enemy. And we cannot pretend that America is not vulnerable to attack at home.

There are massive differences in this debate. The Repubs still want to brand Dems as 'weak on terrorism' because they aren't in favor of the strong-arm approach to smashing terrorist cells abroad. (See Sen. Kerry speech to the CFR last Dec. We can't 'win' a war with ideology this way. We simply can't.) We have to fundamentally change our foreign policy. The strong-arm tactics employed by the US to keep the oil flowing is part of the reason we were attacked. Repubs parry this by saying it is a 'blame America first' approach. That worked in the build up and early execution of the war, but I don't think it will work now. Their simply are no results to back up the idea that America can bully and smash it's way to ending terrorism. Times have changed and the Democratic parry to the 'blame America' argument is to point to how vulnerable we still are despite all the money, loss of life and effort we have made. We have to fight a smarter and better planned response to how to deal with terrorism.

[ProSense]

4. Their entire posture on terror is cynical. Here is something they will not

want to publicize:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=2809951&mesg_id=2809951