Klein on War

Joe Klein's 2003 proclamation that war was probably the right decision combined with his unrelenting hostility to doves makes it a bit hard to believe Klein when he says he's been opposed to the Iraq War since 2002. Nevertheless, when Al Gore delivered his "coming out" speech against the war in September '02 Klein seemed to agree with Gore:

And he raised a crucial distinction: A war against Iraq and the war on terrorism are not identical. Indeed, an immediate attack (in January, one assumes) on Saddam Hussein—which everyone expects, and we must hope, will result in a rapid success—could complicate the larger campaign. A successful war against Iraq raises at least three nettlesome questions. . . .

Almost every politician I've spoken with—Democrat and Republican—has grave doubts about at least some of the details of the operation that we seem to be hurtling toward. After all, for the past 20 years it has been America's tacit but obvious policy to keep Saddam Hussein in power, weapons of mass destruction and all, because his removal was likely to destabilize the region. There are Kurds in the north of Iraq, Shiites (a majority of the population) in the south, Sunnis in between; their postwar loyalties and configurations are unpredictable. It is also quite probable that the next government in Iraq will not be perceived by its neighbors as the avatar of democracy and religious tolerance in the region, but as an American client state. The notion that the incipient pummeling of Baghdad will usher in an Islamic Enlightenment is laughable.

Now that said, Klein would hardly be unique if he found himself skeptical about the war in summer/fall 2002 only to be convinced by the administration's late 2002 PR push and Colin Powell's infamous 2003 UN speech (there was certainly some point in 2002 when I became very skeptical about the war before becoming re-convinced of its wisdom), but back in September '02 he was pretty anti-war.

Comments

This site takes on a totally different flavor when you know MY was actually for the war.

Posted by xlim | January 9, 2007 8:11 AM

"only to be convinced by the administration's late 2002 PR push and Colin Powell's infamous 2003 UN speech"

How out of touch would you have to have been to get conned by Powell's UN speech? It was reasonably obvious at the time to even a semi-sensitive reader of the news that Powell was opposed to the war and was performing the duties of the good soldier in public.

Posted by Petey | January 9, 2007 9:09 AM

Or put another way, that there are internationalist Dems who aren't bloodthirsty war criminals.

I agree. What I object to is when bloodthirsty war criminals insist on denying every non-warmonger the "internationalist" label. I don't see myself as having tons of foreign policy disagreements with Al Gore, though I don't know in detail where Gore stands on everything. I've had the chance to talk with Leon Fuerth, Gore's national security advisor when he was in office, in much more detail and he was extremely impressive

I'd be interested to know, Petey, what things it is Gore stands for that you think I'd disagree with?

Posted by Matthew Yglesias | January 9, 2007 9:41 AM

"I'd be interested to know, Petey, what things it is Gore stands for that you think I'd disagree with?"

I'm not sure. It could purely be a tonal issue.

You definitely give off the vibeage of a somewhat reflexive aversion to the notion that military force is ever an effective recourse.

To pick one example out of the blue, I'm not sure Gore would be as dovish as you on the Somali situation of the past few weeks.

Posted by Petey | January 9, 2007 10:02 AM

Anyone want to map that fuck Klein's position against polls of support for going to war?

Posted by SomeCallMeTim | January 9, 2007 10:07 AM

"I'm not sure Gore would be as dovish as you on the Somali situation of the past few weeks."

Please cease and desist from making posts which undermine my points before I actually post my points.

Posted by Petey | January 9, 2007 10:07 AM

Klein may be anti-war, but his primary obsessions seem to be: anti-progressive, anti-left, and anti-non-common-wisdom.

Posted by MDtoMN | January 9, 2007 11:04 AM

What MDtoMN said. Klein was initally smart enough to realize that the war was a pretty stupid idea. But his reflexive "anti-hippy" emotional reaction to anti-war activists led him down the garden path. As many bloggers have noted elsewhere this seems to be a common problem with aging boomer "centrist liberals" like Klein, Cohen, Dowd, Peretz (if he is still a liberal in any sense). They still seem to think "the Left" is dominated by SDS and for all their professed political beliefs clearly feel much more comfortably socially spending time with our conservative elite than with your average liberal American. Klein et al. seem to have no recognition of how far to the right the entire country has travelled in the last 30 years. A "shrill leftist" like MY would probably have voted for Ford in 1976.

Posted by vanya_6724 | January 9, 2007 11:33 AM

"You definitely give off the vibeage of a somewhat reflexive aversion to the notion that military force is ever an effective recourse."

Oh yes, "vibeage," that piece of fluffy crap. I don't remember reading Yglesias saying he was against going after Al-Qaeda or into Afghanistan, do you? The utility of violence has shrunk greatly over the last few decades (due to the proliferation of small arms, a greater willingness among post-colonial peoples to take up arms to prevent a feared repeat of imperialism, the spread of ideologies that allow for violence, nuclear weapons, the social norm against genocide as a policy tool) and pointing that out doesn't make you Gandhi. Wanting leaders not to be retarded when they use violence is just being realistic. Americans have not caught up with how the world outside their borders is today. Iraq is simply the latest wakeup call.

Posted by Reality Man | January 9, 2007 11:47 AM

What vanya_6724 said. Are we just going to have to wait for the retards to die off before making some progress?

Posted by Reality Man | January 9, 2007 11:49 AM

I don't see the Klein article as being against the war. He brings up issues over it - suggesting that congressmen should think them through and not simply go with what is politically expediant. He says that everyone he's spoken to has misgivings about the war. Sure. But he doesn't draw any of those threads into a conclusion that going to war was wrong.

It seems to be consistant with the quote that Atrios posted, where Klein said that going to Iraq was difficult but correct.

Posted by Justaguy | January 9, 2007 12:06 PM

Matthew Y:

I agree with "Petey", "vanya_6724" and "Justaguy". You give little scumbags like Klein too much credit.

Klein put a finger to the wind and jumped on board. Contrary to our TASS version of history, the world, along with a sizeable minority of Americans, mocked Colin Powell's performance, held their breath when Villepin called our bluff, and at every point saw Bush's U.N. campaign as a fraud and charade.

The American establishment was not convinced by any evidence justifying the invasion but rather the inevitability of the venture.

Posted by brendan | January 9, 2007 3:46 PM

...It's actually worse than that. Democratic-affiliated pundits like Klein or Friedman actually played a vital role in getting people on board. They posed as a skeptical loyal opposition who were ultimately convinced by the "overwhelming evidence" that the administration was making its case in good faith. They lent "credibility" and "bipartisanship" to the case at the crucial hour.

It makes no sense not to assume the worst about these people and conclude they did it consciously. Go back to the Washington Post archives and look at the op-ed pages the day after the Kirov murder, er, I mean the Powell presentation. Could they all really have been so unanimously credulous, even after the same newspaper had covered the yellowcake and the tubes? No. They were all lying.

Posted by brendan | January 9, 2007 4:09 PM

I'm still waiting to hear why anyone should care what Yglesias has to think or say when he supported the fucking war in the first place.

Such people should forfeit their authority. If I could sit on my ass, knowing next to nothing about the Arab world, and know Bush was lying simply by paying attention to the news, then people like Yglesias and the pro-war Democrats were either less intelligent than a child or (more likely) deeply amoral opportunists who figured hundreds of thousands of dead Arabs were insignificant compared to mouthing the same pro-war mantra that gets you ahead in DC.

Fuck them.

Posted by frizzled | January 9, 2007 4:41 PM

frizzled, ... not childlike ... they are children. Oliver, Ezra (Left in the West), Mathew, they are youngsters. Their heads and hearts are in the right place. I'm with them - rather them whippersnappers are with me. And that's the problem : they read their books, but reality is not a textbook, until it's history.

They said what's right - mostly - but we should remember who we are hearing.
Now, all you youngsters, KEEP IT UP! Just learn, hedge a bit (out loud and clearly). Say your hedging and WHY. Sometimes you apply your ethics to others when they may not be worthy. Never be that cynical automatically, but learn.

Posted by Richard W. Crews | January 9, 2007 8:58 PM

"I'm still waiting to hear why anyone should care what Yglesias has to think or say when he supported the fucking war in the first place."

I'm still waiting to hear why anyone would be stupid enough to read and comment at a blog written by someone who no one should care about.

Posted by Petey | January 9, 2007 9:15 PM

Petey - I linked here from Atrios, which isn't written by one of the amoral war supporting bastards.

That's the trouble, other Influential People do treat these people like they have some authority or credibility, despite the fact that in a reasonable world these amoral war supporting bastards would set themselves on fire with shame -- or at least, never offer their opinions to the public again.

There's quite a lot of blood on their hands.

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