Kabuki: In a Good Way

Mike Crowley derides the recent "are we safer?" contretemps as just so much kabuki:

I think nearly everyone would agree that we're safer in some ways (we're watching more closely) and less safe in others (people hate us even more), and that determing which way the scale tips is nearly impossible. What's happening here seems more about center v. left, hawk v. dove politics. (That's especially true when you consider that Edwards was saying the opposite thing back in 2004.)

To me, though, this is valuable kabuki. Bracketing for a moment the issue of Edwards reinvention of himself since 2004, we're seeing one of several indications that Clinton's aspiration on the politics of national security is to slice the salami as thinly as possible, whereas Obama and Edwards are both more eager for a direct assault. The implication of Clinton's line is that whatever sort of mistake Iraq may have been, it obviously wasn't that big a mistake, since it's aggregate impact has been made up for by improved domestic security.

To me, the broader critique is much more politically promising (albeit somewhat riskier). It's going to be difficult to hang narrow, implementation oriented critiques of Iraq on the leading GOP contenders. If you want to leverage the war's unpopularity against Romney, McCain, or Giuliani you really need to level that attack at the level of concepts in which the war is a big, honking strategic error. Politics aside, this is also consistent with Crowley's own observation that Clinton probably doesn't want to apologize for Iraq because she's not sorry; she's sorry it's turned out so poorly, but she thinks that's personally the fault of George W. Bush and his key aides (Cheney, Rumsfeld, Feith, Wolfowitz, Bremer, etc.) rather than the result of a major strategic error that she and I and John Edwards and many others also made.

Comments

We are safer in the sense that we are more vigilant as a result of increased awareness, but the opportunity costs that Bush's war in Iraq has caused are incalculable.

btw, There are Freudian implications to the slicing the salami metaphor with regard to Mrs. Clinton.

Posted by Rich | June 8, 2007 5:19 PM

Funny that she said at the time of the AUMF that it would be a bad idea to invade and has since said it was a bad precedent and that of course we wouldn't have invaded without the WMD deception.

Also funny that I can be aware of this without having made the blundering analytic mistakes you made at the time.

Posted by rilkefan | June 8, 2007 5:33 PM

Idiotic post by Crowley. Well, on the downside, we radicalized an entire generation of Muslims, pushed millions of fence-sitting Muslims onto Bin Laden's side of the fence, alienated our allies, eroded whatever was left of our moral authority, all but destroyed our military, strengthened the conservatives in Iran and quashed the democratic movement there, and generally inspired everyone in the world to hate us.

On the upside, airplane security is a little better!

Posted by david mizner | June 8, 2007 5:53 PM

david mizner --

You express everything so very well, but I challenge the notion that airplane security is a little better -- added inconvenience doesn't necessarily translate into security.

Oh yes, we also increased Assad's grip on power in Syria since all Syrians prefer what they have to becoming like Iraq!

Posted by Prior Aelred | June 8, 2007 6:12 PM

As I posted at Cole's place earlier, and as Atrios brings up on his own (http://atrios.blogspot.com/2007_06_03_archive.html#8745001254961807001), people don't take into account the Americans serving in Iraq and Afghanistan, nor do they often remember our British and Spanish allies. They are in danger every day, Americans are getting shot and blown up, our allies are getting shot and blown up, and there is no prospect of improvement with current management in place.

Posted by ploeg | June 8, 2007 6:21 PM

With a "quiet riot" obvioiusly unfolding in black America I think it's safe to conclude that we may be on the verge of a dokken, or at least krokus, or dio in Iraq.

Posted by Linus | June 8, 2007 6:30 PM

"Clinton's line is that whatever sort of mistake Iraq may have been, it obviously wasn't that big a mistake, since it's aggregate impact has been made up for by improved domestic security."

I don't think that is her line.

She was responding to a question that involved JFK terror plot. She was clearly referring to airport security. And yes, we are probably safer in terms of airport security. There are more checks etc.

The larger issue, "national security" is a separate matter. We are less secure because Bush foreign policy has left us with fewer friends and more enemies.

Posted by DonB | June 8, 2007 7:16 PM

One act of the Kabuki that's really bothering me: how can the many liberal bloggers who favor the meme that the Bush administration has been fear-mongering with their "war on terror" since 9/11, i.e., "you have a better chance of being hit by lightning than by terrorism," play the game of criticizing presidential candidates for trying to minimize the fear factor by pointing out that "we are safer but need to do more"? How is that going to work? How can the terrorist threat be both hogwash and greatly increased by the Iraq situation?

Posted by artappraiser | June 8, 2007 7:19 PM

I think what Clinton's comment indicates is a general unwillingness to change the direction that Bush has been taking the country for the last 6 years. Artappraiser above gives the Lieberman/Clinton viewpoint quite well.She asks how can the terrorist threat be both hogwash and greatly increased by the Iraq situation. So who said it was hogwash? Well, artappraiser, that's who... by cherrypicking some comment which while literally true is quoted by artappraiser to mean the terrorist threat may be ignored altogether. Nooo. Even lightning is taken seriously...lightning rods and all. Remember precautions...don't seek shelter under an isolated tree. The terrorist threat right now is real; it is still small; but it is growing and it has been made MUCH worse by Bush and enablers like Clinton, Lieberman and other centrist types. There. Artappraiser even you can get it.

Posted by della Rovere | June 8, 2007 9:14 PM

Wrong question to ask.

The right question is: Are we as safe after 9/11 as we could be?

Playing to a "push" isn't good enough. We could easily be much safer - and that is the most essential point.

Posted by Eric Martin | June 8, 2007 10:36 PM

Not even a little more safe. This greater vigilance makes sense if the threat is really significant. But it's pretty clear that the threat from, in particular, Islamic terror is not high on the priority list. The risks from nutcases and right wing extremists are much greater.

And reacting excessively to the "Islamic threat" serves bin Laden's purposes.

Myself, I'd try to make the case for the legal system. Note the 25 arrests (and, I believe, convictions) that the NY USAttorney's office made in the wake of the 1993 WTC bombing attempt did make people in the metropolitan area much safer.

Posted by jayackroyd | June 8, 2007 10:49 PM

Well, in one obvious way we seem safer: Mohammed Atta seems to have been a rare organizer. Al Qaeda tried for years to commit some horrendous act in some Western country - hence, the aborted plane attacks planned in the phillipines. And the bombing of the WTC in 1993. But in fact, much depends on how talented the organizer of the attackers is. And because Al qaeda mixes a romantic and baroque Islam with everything it does, it puts itself in a bind in developed countries - there, the kind of sophistication needed to lead an attack is at odds with the kind of person attracted to that romantic Islam. In Atta's case, though, he had the profile of a white collar engineering type. Even so, the group of hijackers were sloppy enough, from all accounts, to raise suspicions. Still, to coordinate three hijackings on one morning does take a lot of management skill. In a sense, Atta was the dark side of the 90s Silicon valley entrepreneur, willing to work in stripped down conditions and to forgo the usual business metrics to get his affair off the ground.

Posted by roger | June 8, 2007 11:46 PM

I would say that we are significantly less safe, but not really because of the terrorism issue. The reason is that both the risk of a major regional war in the Middle East, and even a potential world war ignited therefrom, are much higher than they were before Bush began dicking with the global security situation. Obviously if either of these potentialities becomes actual, a lot of Americans, both soldiers and civilians, are going to suffer a great deal. I think we all have good reason to feel more insecure about our futures than we did before the Bush administation began its adventures.

Posted by Dan Kervick | June 8, 2007 11:57 PM

Ron Suskind's book is interesting in this regard. There's now a large security apparatus with lots of spare time on its hands, and the need to be seen doing something.

And Suskind's point holds true: why no more attacks within the US on, say, a Madrid or London scale? Its not as if all opportunities have dried up.

yes, we are probably safer in terms of airport security. There are more checks etc.

Nah. Plenty of US airports are still laid out in a way that the security lines present a target of their own, should anyone want to exploit it.

How can the terrorist threat be both hogwash and greatly increased by the Iraq situation?

You're basically trying to graph two separate things on the same scale. Is the threat worth large Homeland Security earmarks to Des Moines, or the surveillance of Quaker knitting circles, or the embrace of methods and principles from a previous century? Nah.

But does Iraq create a situation that bites the US on the ass within that region, with the slim possibility of domestic blowback? Yeah. Which is why you spend the money and devote the domestic resources to that possibility. And, y'know, don't start fuckwitted wars of choice.

Posted by pseudonymous in nc | June 9, 2007 2:28 AM

Are we safer?
Are you kidding me? No. Clearly No.
3500 dead Americans cant be wrong.

Posted by Aaron | June 9, 2007 4:16 AM

Are we safer?
Are you kidding me? No. Clearly No.
3500 dead Americans cant be wrong.
How many Americans are going to die tomorrow?
The day after? 15 in Iraq over the weekend?
Thats not safer. That is less safe.

Posted by Aaron | June 9, 2007 4:17 AM

Matt is very much on point here, this debate is a bit of a stand in for the larger debate of how to assess our security and how to differientiate ourselves with the Republicans on that issue.

On both points I think Clinton is wrong. While no doubt we have made some tactical improvements in our defensive structures and security agencies are more aware of terrorist threats, on a strategic level we are much weaker due mainly to Iraq (ie. fewer allies and more enemies).

Edwards and Obama are going after the Republicans strategic concepts of security, especially Edwards with attacks on the GWOT meme. Clinton is dilly dallying with tactics.

Posted by AJ | June 9, 2007 7:34 AM

You quote Crowley saying, "What's happening here seems more about center v. left, hawk v. dove politics." And then let it go as if it were the left against everyone else. This is backwards. It's now only the far-right fringe plus McCain vs. everybody else who still want the war to continue and think it somehow makes us safer.

Edwards position is much easier to understand than you make it out to be. He and the rest of us were fed a bunch of lies about the situation wrt Iraq, and based on those lies, he supported the Administration. Assuming that's the turnaround in 2004 to which you're referring.

When he found out none of it was true, he turned against it. It's the same position Kerry blundered through. It was never dishonest nor was/is it somehow shameful, as you and others seem to want to paint it. It's actually perfectly reasonable.

To support this war and to want it to continue on the grounds that it's making us safer (false justification number 5, I think) is to also suggest that this is the best possible allocation of half a trillion dollars (and counting) toward our security, and also that however many American and Iraqi lives are destroyed in the process is also justifiable.

What's done is done but going forward, what's the best allocation of our resources toward our national security? ALL the Republican candidates (except Ron Paul) seem to think it's to continue slogging through the quagmire in Iraq. None of the Democrats are expressing the position that they believe this is our best play.

So it's the far-right who believe Iraq is our best plan to make us safer vs. everyone else who understand it's not making us safer. Quite the contrary.

Posted by Blunderbuss | June 9, 2007 9:57 AM

"The implication of Clinton's line is that whatever sort of mistake Iraq may have been, it obviously wasn't that big a mistake, since it's aggregate impact has been made up for by improved domestic security."

Clinton wasn't asked about Iraq. Her answer wasn't about Iraq. The "implication of Clinton's line" seems to be whatever we find pleasing.

Posted by bob somerby | June 9, 2007 12:31 PM

Edwards is correct to point out that America's Grand Strategy is making the US more hated, reviled and targeted by converting Arab fence sitters into Jihadists and Guerrillas.

It needs to be said. Bush lost America the ME.

Posted by Dan | June 9, 2007 1:58 PM