Third Way!

Sharon Burke says you should stop tarring her and her colleagues with the generic "centrist" brush:

The United States needs to get out of the war in Iraq. We should have never, never been in it in the first place. This war was a stupid idea, not just a badly executed idea.

That is my position. It is – and always has been – the position of Third Way. Well, actually Third Way did not exist when we got into this war. But I certainly know it was my position, and that of all four founders of this group. One of them, Matt Bennett, moved to Little Rock, Arkansas to work for Wes Clark’s campaign because he thought Clark was the best anti-war candidate. So let there be no doubt that Third Way’s team has opposed this war from the very beginning.

She also notes that "I hope that the people of the Middle East will have an opportunity to benefit from open economies and representative governments . . . [b]ut I do not believe that invading other nations to force them into democracies can possibly work, and I really don’t believe it can work in the Middle East." I think it's fair to say that I have major disagreements with a lot of the domestic policy stuff that's come out under the Third Way umbrella, but netroots folks would do well to keep in mind that unlike, say, the DLC, Third Way has a pretty good foreign policy track record. Bill Galston and Elaine Kamarck, authors of this new Third Way report on national security, for example, were also Iraq War opponents from the beginning.

Comments

Any chance either of these people made some definitive statement before the war saying they were opposed to it?

I looked a bit and didn't find any.

Posted by Atrios | May 26, 2007 10:13 AM

"I do not believe that invading other nations to force them into democracies can possibly work,"

Can countries be "forced" into democracy? This is a bit of dishonest phrasing. Given the opportunity to chose their own leaders democratically, people don't need to be "forced" to do so; they tend to want to have some say in who governs them and how. We didn't force the Iraqis to elect the lackluster government they did, we forced out the dictator who had prevented them from doing this for decades. The Iraqis took to their polls enthusiastically, despite death threats. This is worth remembering. One can easily argue that the invasion of Iraq was a mistake on our part, and that the country is a bloody mess, but to claim that the government Iraqis chose in UN-monitored, free elections was imposed on them is a blatant lie.

It's certainly true that we can't force any country to elect competent leaders who can govern effectively; however, military interventions can and have removed barriers to democracy. For example, our invasion of Panama (almost universally condemned at the time) removed that country's dictator, who had been an obstacle to democracy. Today, Panama is a democracy. Similarly, our military assistance in the government of El Salvador's counterinsurgency against Marxist rebels removed a barrier to democracy there -- namely, the armed resistance of those Marxist rebels. Once the Marxists were compelled to negotiate, the rightest government in El Salvador agreed to free elections (not the first time a rightist autocracy we supported embraced democracy). Today El Salvador is also a democracy.

"I really don’t believe it can work in the Middle East."

That Iraq wouldn't turn into Sweden after Saddam was ousted anyone could have predicted. That Iraqis would be less capable than Panamanians in governing themselves democratically was less obvious. But I think there is universal agreement now that engaging in long-term military interventions in Arab countries, for whatever reasons, is Quixotic at best. Well, almost unanimous agreement, I should say. Joe Biden wants to take troops out of the civil war in Iraq, and put them in the middle of the civil war in another Arab country, Sudan. Perhaps he's not part of the third way.

Posted by harry | May 26, 2007 10:16 AM

Mr. Yglesias,

I think you miss the point of your own comments. If there is not that much difference between the Third Way and liberal progressives, then why do they call themselves "Third Way?" The reason is that they instinctively, like the media, tend to follow the "pox on both of their houses" critique. In fact, that is why they call themselves the "third way."

If they agree with progressives on Iraq, and a host of other issues (e.g., abortion, gay rights -- which I think many of them do), then why do they call themselves "third way: instead of jsut "conservative-leaning progressives." The answer is that they do not like, as Atrios calls them, the "dirty fucking hippies" on the left.

Thanks.

Posted by anemic coward | May 26, 2007 10:46 AM

Elections alone do not make a stable liberal democracy, a simple fact the right in this country just can't seem to grasp. One also needs a functioning civil society, respect for the rule of law and protection for minority rights. All of which were and are lacking in Iraq.

The absence of those factors makes the incompetence and corruption of Iraq's government fairly predictable. The idea that Iraq wouldn't be a stable democracy after the forcible removal of Hussein by an indidel army is only not obvious if you knew absolutely nothing about the country before hand.

Posted by AJ | May 26, 2007 10:53 AM

AJ,
Don't forget, a stable country has to have a monopoly on violence. Obviously Iraq doesn't have that either right now.

Posted by Joe Klein's conscience | May 26, 2007 12:03 PM

Third Way was founded in 2004, so it's impossible to know what their founders thought about the war unless they were on the record at the time. Here's President Cowan on withdrawal:

In a statement issued at the start of this week's Senate debate on Iraq, Third Way President Jonathan Cowan urged Democrats to reject "calls for an immediate exit or for arbitrary timelines that ignore the danger to American national security of a precipitous withdrawal of our forces."

Mr. Cowan's group endorsed an amendment offered by Democratic Sens. Carl Levin of Michigan and Jack Reed of Rhode Island that would begin a phased withdrawal by year's end but does not set specific numerical reductions or a deadline for future reductions. "This amendment rejects both extremes in the debate over the future of Iraq," he said.

Cowan is calling you an extremist, Matt. If you say their track record is good, then I'll believe you. But it's hard to believe, since they keep misrepresenting people who want to see the occupation end as extremists.

Posted by Matt Stoller | May 26, 2007 1:06 PM

It is interesting that those who opposed the Democrat's (former) plan don't really tell us much about how they envision the withdrawal. It has no time limit - it seems to rely on the vaguest of conditions - it demands no benchmarks that can be enforced - and it seems to posit no scenario of responses to a worsening situation. In fact, it seems like an excuse not to have a plan at all - which is exactly the plan we are following today!

Synergy! The third way should get serious about sponsoring a conference with the AEI and Brookings, get Kenneth Pollack to speak at it, and watch their reviews glow in some David Broder column.

That's what I call be responsibly progressive. And giving yourself a nice career boost.

Posted by roger | May 26, 2007 1:33 PM

Thirdwayism has a mixed but generally awful historical outcome. I think part of the reason has to do with the entire intellectual underpinning resting on a golden means fallacy. They get things right occasionally but only because their M.O. happened to land them in the right spot because whatever their current climate in whatever country they happened to reside in had left/right forces in a position for them to be right by their pre-ordained centrism. They are especially media darlings in America because that's what they teach in journalism now. "Republicans say X" "Democrats say Y" is the reporting and the editorial machine is doing a great job if they throw a couple pot shots at whatever flaws there are.

Sometimes Democrats and Republicans are both saying idiotic things. That spending appropriation on Iraq was a perfect example. "Democrats and Republicans both know it would be this terrible red line to cross to cut off funds for the soldiers in the field". The whole media repeated this and they did it because the more "serious" democrats repeated it. This is really what they were putting out there: There would a rifle company somewhere in Anbar in a firefight and they run out of ammo. They look for more and they can't have it because they are broke! Then after they get chased out they are going to starve. No one anywhere even seemed to question for a second that this would never, ever, ever, happen. It's flat out fucking ridiculous.

Posted by Ed Marshall | May 26, 2007 1:56 PM

"One can easily argue that the invasion of Iraq was a mistake on our part, and that the country is a bloody mess, but to claim that the government Iraqis chose in UN-monitored, free elections was imposed on them is a blatant lie."

Well it may not be the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, but it is not 'blatant', it is not even clear that it is a lie.

The United States maintained and maintains a pretty heavy had during the transition and the writing of the Constitution and in the rounds of elections and has been pretty clear who is and is not acceptable. In particular Cheney kind of let the cat out of the bag when asked what we would do if the election returned an Iranian friendly Shi'ia fundamentalist government. His reply? "That is not going to happen." And to date (though maybe not for long) it hasn't happened. But from start to finish and continuing today the Administrations hand has weighed pretty heavy in day to day decision making within the Iraqi government. Iraqis by and large chose the government they were allowed to choose. Purple fingers do not a democracy make.

As an example the Iraqi Army is still under American command and control.

Posted by Bruce Webb | May 26, 2007 3:28 PM

Bruce, to your list, of course, you could add the current Iraqi P.M. Maliki was put in place because the Americans disapproved of Jafari. Now, what's the name of that form of government where another country controls who and who cannot run it? It is on the tip of my tongue. Begins with a c, I believe...

Then, to pile on, there is the question of 'what' the voters were voting on. Never have parties been so obscure, or what they supported such a mystery. None of them, of course, could run on a platform that is naturally popular in Iraq: it is all right to shoot the occupier.

Also, I like the tone of the passage you quoted. It was so much like what the indignant tone the soviets would take to questioning the legitimacy of the band of socialist republic brother countries who were their allies and comrades.

No doubt the Third Way people are also enthusiasts for the Whitney Euston manifesto and other such high minded warbling. I am surprised these people can even believe themselves after four straight years of having their views falsified.

Posted by roger | May 26, 2007 4:24 PM

It's a little scary to see a complimentary blog about Third Way -- like it's maybe a trick or something. But then again, we think what you write on national security is solid, too, Matt. So maybe it's not a trick.

Atrios, at the time of the invasion, I was not working in the public domain (I was at the State Dept, working for Rich Armitage, Richard Haass, and Mitchell Reiss), so I have no public record of my opinion. Sorry that you have to take my word for it. At the time, I thought I was helping the good guys in a truly consequential and very nasty internecine fight.

For what it's worth, I was at Amnesty International immediately before I was at State.

I'm a pragmatist and an idealist. Does that make me a centrist? I don't know. I don't think those labels are meaningful when it comes to national security & foreign policy. After all, there were progressives who supported the initial attack (Matt Stoller, I think?) and centrists who did not. Bill Galston, no dirty hippie himself, actually debated Ken Pollock on TV before the war.

We can start leaving tomorrow, I suppose, but we're all going to have to bear the consequences of George Bush's war, whether we supported it or not. It just seems to me that it's very, very important to talk and think about the consequences now (which Ken Pollock is doing, by the way).

And if by Whitney Euston's manifesto, you mean "crack is whack," I'm on board with that.

Sharon Burke

Posted by Sharon | May 31, 2007 6:40 PM

Atrios needs to brush up his search skills. In June of 2002, right after President Bush's West Point speech, I published a long piece in the Outlook section of the Washington Post arguing--on grounds of principle as well as practicality-- against invading Iraq. I then spent much of the fall of 2002 debating pro-intervention liberals in very public places. I can (and have been) justly accused of many mistakes, but being a johnny-come-lately anti-Iraq warrior isn't one of them.

Bill Galston

Posted by william galston | June 1, 2007 11:22 AM