Iraq War: Kerry on Iraq

John Kerry's Strategy for Iraq statement today hasn't exactly earned cheers of support in Left Blogostan.  This paragraph in particular has the antiwar movement folks shaking their heads:

In the past week the situation in Iraq has taken a dramatic turn for the worse. While we may have differed on how we went to war, Americans of all political persuasions are united in our determination to succeed. The extremists attacking our forces should know they will not succeed in dividing America, or in sapping American resolve, or in forcing the premature withdrawal of U.S. troops. Our country is committed to help the Iraqis build a stable, peaceful and pluralistic society. No matter who is elected president in November, we will persevere in that mission.

By the way, I believe that's the first time I've used the phrase "antiwar movement" in the context of the Iraq War.  But it's descriptive enough that I believe I'll keep it in my vocablulary.

I had to suppress an urge to make a loud groan when I saw that, as well.  Showing will and determination is fine in sports games where the teams are something close to evenly matched.  But showing the same in connection with a disastrous and hopeless military occupation is something very different.

But let's go on the assumption for the moment that the situation in Iraq is not entirely hopeless from the American viewpoint.  (It's already too late to pretend it's not a disaster.)  I notice that what Kerry states as the goal in Iraq is "to help the Iraqis build a stable, peaceful and pluralistic society."  Nothing in his strategy statement about the neoconservatives' fantasy about a model Western-style democracy in Iraq.

And that difference in emphasis for Kerry is an important difference from the Bush policy.  Compared to that, Kerry's position is a move toward a more pragmatic and realistic view of the US role in Iraq.  The United States does stand for democracy.  But most Americans do not share the view of the neocons that it's America's historic role to spread democracy through bombs and tanks in Napoleanic wars of liberation.

Kerry makes several other points that constitute a constructive opposition to the Bush failure in the Iraq War (quotes in italics):

1) [T]he military alone cannot win the peace in Iraq.  We need a political strategy that will work.

2) The June 30 deadline for a handover of sovereignty to an interim Iraqi government is unrealistic because there is no agreement with the Iraqis on how it will be constituted to make it representative enough to have popular legitimacy.

3) Throw the full support of the US behind the efforts of Lakhdar Brahimi on behalf of the United Nations to come up with an alternative approach to building an interim government, in order to make the United Nations a full partner responsible for developing Iraq's transition to a new constitution and government.

4) Attempt to develop a NATO force, along the lines of the NATO mission in Afghanistan, to provide extra legitimacy and troops to the occupation.

5) The President should articlate a clear and credible goal and recognize that the challenges are significant and the costs are high.

Now, in fairness to those who have been more consistently right all along than even John Kerry has been in opposing the Iraq War, there are elements of this plan that are almost certainly unrealistic.  Even if Bush were to announce today that Dick Cheney was retiring as Vice President and he was asking Congress to put in Al Gore as his replacement so that he (Bush) could then resign and let the elected President handle things for the rest of the year, some things are unlikely.

For Germany, France, Spain or even Britain to commit additional troops to the mess that Bush and Rummy have made of Iraq is improbable in the extreme.  It's a miracle of sorts that they haven't bailed on the Afghanistan mission so far, as badly as the Bush team has handled that.  And, in practice, having a larger United Nations role is a limited solution at best, because no member country is going to be willing to commit large numbers of troops at this point.

Having said that, though, I recognize that Kerry is not a private citizen sounding off on a Weblog.  He doesn't want to give the enemy the idea that they should postpone making realistic arrangements for a peaceful transition in Iraq until after the election.  And he needs to give voters a sense of how he would approach current problems right now, even though whatever happens the situation he may be handed as President in January 2004 will be very different.

Finally, antiwar bloggers should take notice of some of the very good criticisms of the failure of Bush's war policy in the Kerry statement (my emphasis):

Because of the way the White House has run the war, we are left with the United States bearing most of the costs and risks associated with every aspect of the Iraqi transition. We have lost lives, time, momentum and credibility. And we are seeing increasing numbers of Iraqis lashing out at the United States to express their frustration over what the Bush administration has and hasn't done. ...

It is vital that Brahimi accomplish this mission, but the odds are long, because tensions have been allowed to build and distrust among the various Iraqi groups runs deep. ...

The events of the past week will make foreign governments extremely reluctant to put their citizens at risk. That is why international acceptance of responsibility for stabilizing Iraq must be matched by international authority for managing the remainder of the Iraqi transition. The United Nations, not the United States, should be the primary civilian partner in working with Iraqi leaders to hold elections, restore government services, rebuild the economy, and re-create a sense of hope and optimism among the Iraqi people. ...

Finally, we must level with our citizens. [I.e., Bush is lying. - BM] Increasingly, the American people are confused about our goals in Iraq, particularly why we are going it almost alone. ...

This morning, as we sit down to read newspapers in the comfort of our homes or offices, we have an obligation to think of our fighting men and women in Iraq who awake each morning to a shooting gallery in which it is exceedingly difficult to distinguish friend from foe, and the death of every innocent creates more enemies. We owe it to our soldiers and Marines to use absolutely every tool we can muster to help them succeed in their mission without exposing them to unnecessary risk. That is not a partisan proposal. It is a matter of national honor and trust.

That last statement I think is very well put.  I expect that our sad press corps, pathetically receptive to Republican spin, will mainly look at this statement to ask, "Is Kerry flip-flopping?" No, he's not.  He's trying to article a pragmatic approach to a crisis of the Bush Administration own making.