Can Kerry Just Be Himself?

As the presidential campaign settles down into that crucial back-stretch period, progressive commentators continue to argue that Sen. John Kerry needs to explicitly articulate an Iraq exit strategy.

The latest to take up this position is Los Angeles Times columnist Robert Scheer, whom I greatly respect for past and present work.

"At Bush's prompting," Mr. Scheer writes in a recent column, "reporters asked Kerry if he, knowing what we all know now about Iraq's lack of weapons of mass destruction, would still have voted, as he did in October 2002, to authorize the president to use force against Iraq. Instead of smacking that hanging curveball out of the park by denouncing the Bush administration for deceiving Congress and the nation into a war, Kerry inexplicably said yes.... Unfortunately, then and now, it is the wrong answer to the wrong question.... Half the country now thinks invading Iraq was a bad idea, and nobody can be comfortable with the way it has turned out. The American people want to know how we got into this mess, how we can get out and how we will avoid making such stupid mistakes in the future. To win the debates and the election, Kerry needs to establish himself as the clear alternative to a president who has lied us into a quagmire."

Respectfully, I disagree. This is a case, I think, of progressives fighting the last anti-war.

The great anti-war protests of '67 and '68 helped fuel the insurgent, anti-war challenge of Sen. Eugene McCarthy to sitting President Lyndon Johnson in the 1968 presidential election. McCarthy came within a few percentage points of beating Johnson in the New Hampshire primary and that event – coupled with the entrance of Robert Kennedy into the Democratic race on a rising anti-war tide – forced Johnson to announce his decision not to run for re-election. Richard Nixon won the presidency over Vice President Hubert Humphrey later that fall, partly on a pledge that he had a "secret plan" to get the U.S. out of Vietnam.

But that was then. This is now.

There are two reasons why progressives should not look to the election of 2004 as a reprisal of '68. The first is that – unlike 1968 – there is not yet a broad consensus among anti-war Americans as to what should be done about Iraq. And second, John Kerry is not a formidable advocate of his positions, and would probably fumble the attempt to explain in detail an exit strategy. And fumble it badly.

In 1968 – with ever-growing numbers of U.S. military casualties – the belief solidified across a large section of America that U.S. forces should be unilaterally withdrawn from Vietnam. The smaller group of this coalition was made up of those who felt that Vietnam was an illegal, immoral, unjustified colonial war. But the larger – and eventually decisive – element was made up of a broad group of citizens who felt it was an unnecessary war, at least from the point of view of United States security. And later events, of course, proved that view to be correct.

Jump, now, to the present. There is no such unconditional withdrawal consensus concerning the war in Iraq, for one quite obvious reason: the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11. While my friend, Mr. Scheer, is entirely correct in his statement that "half the country now thinks invading Iraq was a bad idea, and nobody can be comfortable with the way it has turned out," the "how" of the getting back out is another thing entirely. Many – and I count myself among that many – believe that it is the U.S. military presence in Iraq that is exacerbating the problem. We are developing two new terrorists for every one who U.S. soldiers manage to kill, and an immediate, unconditional U.S. withdrawal is the first, necessary step for healing the wounds and promoting homeland security. But many other Americans – thoughtful, reasonable friends and neighbors – while now believing that we never should have invaded, also believe that a precipitous U.S. withdrawal would make things infinitely worse, helping to advance the terrorist cause. These folks believe that it is our responsibility to clean up the mess we have caused.