The Democrats' Quagmire

By Geov Parrish, WorkingForChange.com. Posted November 4, 2003.

On the Democratic presidential hopefuls' plans -- or lack of them -- for Iraq

Tools
EMAIL
PRINT

Share and save this post:

AlterNet Social Networks:

Belief:
Atheism and Diversity: Is It Wrong For Atheists To Convert Believers?
Greta Christina

Corporate Accountability and WorkPlace:
Don't Fear the Deficit Bogeyman
John Miller

DrugReporter:
The War on Weed: Marijuana Is Basically Harmless -- The Monumentally Stupid Drug War Is Not
Jim Hightower

Environment:
White House Garden Won't Make Up for Obama's Nomination of Pesticide Lobbyist for US Chief Agriculture Negotiator
Jill Richardson

Food:
Don't Be Scared of Food: Are We Being Needlessly Hysterical About Food Safety?
David E. Gumpert

Health and Wellness:
47,000 Women Could Die As a Result of the New Mammogram Guidelines
George Lakoff

Immigration:
Republican Playbook on Immigration Debate Long on Emotions, Short on Facts
Mary Giovagnoli

Media and Technology:
The Memory Scrub About Why Ft. Hood Happened Is Almost Complete ... If It Weren't for Archives
Mark Ames

Movie Mix:
Disney Apocalypse: Why 2012 Sucks
Alexander Zaitchik

Politics:
White House's Ties to Health Care Industry Deeper Than Visitor Records Show
Daniela Perdomo

Reproductive Justice and Gender:
Why Can't We Look Away From Sarah Palin?
Vanessa Richmond

Rights and Liberties:
Whatever Happened to the CIA Black Sites?
David Corn

Sex and Relationships:
Hot Mormon Muffins and Models for Jesus: What's With All the Sexy Christians?
Liz Langley

Take Action:
G-20 Meetings: Nothing Much Happened in the Suites, and There Was Too Much Punch in the Streets
Laura Flanders

Water:
Poseidon's Financial Shell Game: Why Is a Private Desalination Plant Asking for Public Money?
Peter Gleick

World:
Is Obama Following in the Footsteps of Bill Clinton?
Jeff Cohen

More stories by Geov Parrish

Main AlterNet RSS Feed

Upcoming AlterNet stories on Digg

Yesterday, if you went to johnkerry.com and followed the links to discover Kerry’s thoughts on Iraq, you’d finally reach the prompt: “What is Kerry’s plan to win the peace in Iraq? *Read here*.”

Clicking the link simply took you back to Kerry’s home page.

Kerry’s web team thus inadvertently captured perfectly the problem Iraq presents to the Democrats’ nine major presidential hopefuls. All of them agree, to varying extents, that George Bush has made a mess of things. But they’ve been so busy of late harping on Dubya’s failures that few of us have any idea what each of them would do. And there’s this nagging suspicion that they don’t know what they’d do, either. Ask them, and they’re likely to simply send you back to their home page, the one that reads “Bush = bad. Me = good.”

The reality is that no matter how flawed George Bush’s reasons for invading Iraq, the invasion happened. No matter how poorly planned the occupation of Iraq has been, the U.S. still controls Iraq. No matter how corrupt the awarding of no-bid reconstruction projects has been, the contracts are being signed and fortunes are being made. And no matter how absurd the mandate of American soldiers is, the bombs, grenades, bullets, and homemade mortars being fired at them are very deadly, and the weapons they’re firing back with are deadlier still.

If ever there were a time this country needed to set aside sound-bite politics and have a serious discussion of what to do next, this would be it.

Dream on. John Kerry, Bob Edwards, and Howard Dean all want to “win the peace.” (Who, exactly, would then lose the peace?) Perusing the candidates’ official web sites, not many have anything substantive to say at all regarding the future of Iraq. Along with all the ills of our once-popular President, we learn that:

Gen. Wesley Clark (ret.), whose candidacy is almost entirely a consequence of his perceived gravitas on military affairs, thinks we must define our exit strategy. However, he doesn’t offer any suggestions himself. Clark gained public prominence by analyzing the invasion for CNN -- but isn’t analyzing the occupation in nearly as much detail. He’s not alone.

Howard Dean, at this point the likeliest nominee -- as a direct result of grassroots response to his anti-war stance -- preaches that “America must lead the world, not oppose the world.” His foreign policy specifics? Dean would create an alliance among governments and people everywhere. Cool. You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one.

Sen. John Edwards supported the invasion but believes the U.S. “cannot rebuild Iraq alone.” You read it here first. He voted against Dubya’s $87 billion Iraq bill -- as did John Kerry -- but does not want the U.S. to withdraw. Huh?

Amazingly, the official site for Richard Gephardt‘s labor-centric bid lists positions on 29 issues, of which only two have anything to do with foreign affairs at all: “International minimum wage” and “Working with Israel.” No war on terror, no Iraq, nothing on the half of federal discretionary spending that goes to the military. It’s the economy, stupid.

Dennis Kucinich appears to be the only candidate actually calling for the U.S. to withdraw troops and let the U.N. take it all over -- which is what much of the Democratic Party, and much of Iraq, would prefer. And this just in, also from the Kucinich folks: He has been endorsed by a Canadian professor! (Seriously.)

Joseph Ariel Lieberman wants “the world to work together immediately to appoint an international administration... possibly led by a qualified Arab official, and an international security force to oversee Iraq’s reconstruction and transition to democratic self-rule.” Joe also shares the neocon priority of “moving the Muslim world toward (Western) democracy,” but doesn’t even try to reconcile the reality that not only are Iraqis not Arabs, but any “qualified Arab” got that way by moving up the ranks in his own, very non-democratic, country. Joe voted in favor of the $87 billion.

Carol Moseley-Braun says that our troops need more resources -- even supplies!! -- and hopes that funds from other countries will “allow us, within the tradition of U.S. command and control over our own forces, allow us [sic] to extricate ourselves with honor but continue a viable war on terrorism that gets bin Laden and his pals.”

Al Sharpton urges you to register to vote.

For more on John Kerry, click here.

Excepting Kucinich, who has raised hundreds of dollars to date, none of Dubya’s would-be replacements is challenging the fundamental Bush premise that the U.S. intends and expects to call the shots in Iraq (literally) for a long time to come. None is addressing future specifics of how to help alleviate the dire status of U.S. soldiers, or the even more dire reality facing many ordinary Iraqis.

Perhaps American politics can’t support such detail; maybe it really is all about image and leadership and judgment and (especially) personality. But like it or not, George Bush has a clear plan for Iraq: loot it bare, shoot anything that moves, and eventually install puppets to oversee the survivors. It’s grim, but it’s simple and concrete.

Democrats like Clark, Kerry, Dean, Gephardt, and Lieberman need not only to distinguish themselves from Bush and from each other, but to lay out the ideas that they believe would work better. By and large, we’re still waiting.

In exactly one year, one of these nine people will face George Bush. Are you worried yet?

View as a single page

Liked this story? Get top stories in your inbox each week from AlterNet! Sign up now »

AlterNet Home » Story Tools: EMAIL PRINT

More News and Analysis:
Republican Playbook on Immigration Debate Long on Emotions, Short on Facts Immigration: Senate Republicans have “thoughtfully’ provided immigration advocates with their strategy for opposing immigration reform in 2010. By Mary Giovagnoli, Immigration Impact. November 27, 2009.	Lou Dobbs Suddenly Loves Illegal Immigrants? Clearly He's Eyeing Public Office Politics: Dobbs said he now favors the very legalization process for unauthorized immigrants that he's long derided as a brain-dead "amnesty". By Joshua Holland, AlterNet. November 26, 2009.	Whatever Happened to the CIA Black Sites? Rights and Liberties: The CIA ordered its secret prisons closed, but lawyers for terrorism suspects want them preserved as possible evidence -- and the CIA won't say what's going on. By David Corn, Mother Jones. November 26, 2009.

Newsletter

Search: