Instincts

I think Kevin Drum's focus on foreign policy "instincts" in raising a question like "Iraq aside, do you think Gore has fundamentally changed his worldview since the 90s in ways that Hillary hasn't?" is a mistake. It's worth considering principles. Iraq was premised on two big ideas. One was that unilateral preventive military force is a good way to handle non-proliferation policy. The second was that unilateral preventive military force was a good way to advance democracy. People who opposed the war, like Gore, believed that neither of those things were true. People who supported the war believed that one or both of those things was true.

I, for example, never really thought that invading random medium-sized dictatorships to try to turn them into democracies made sense. I did, however, believe that the use of unilateral military force as a tool of non-proliferation policy was a good idea. In retrospect, I, like John Edwards, no longer believe that. Does Hillary Clinton still believe it?

But to look at it from the "instincts" point of view, I'm not sure how much we can really conclude from looking at the Clinton years. I think the policies Bill Clinton enacted while in office were pretty good. At the same time, it's clear that the Clinton administration perceived itself, rightly or wrongly, to be making foreign policy under circumstances of tight political constraints. And, in particular, they believed that the tight political constraints made it unwise or impossible to pursue really big policy initiatives. That makes it hard to say exactly where anyone's instincts lay. It's clear that some members of Bill Clinton's administration left office feeling it was too bad that the political circumstances didn't exist that would make it possible to launch a preventive war in Iraq (Kenneth Pollack says as much in The Threatening Storm). It's also clear that some members left office feeling it was too bad that the political circumstances didn't exist that would make it possible to ratify the Kyoto Protocols (Al Gore, obviously). And some people probably thought both of those things.

And so on and so forth down the line. I don't find anything in the Clinton administration record terribly frightening. But it wasn't perfect either. There's raw material in there for a great foreign policy and also material in there for a terrible one. To me, the most troubling thing about Hillary Clinton is that her read of the politics is to always err on the side of hawkishness. And of course if she (a) votes for Iraq, (b) watches Iraq turn into an unpopular disaster, (c) declines to apologize for her actions, (d) wins the Democratic nomination, and (e) wins the presidency then that's only going to re-enforce that interpretation of politics. After all, if unapologetic support for a hugely unpopular foreign policy disaster doesn't even doom you in a Democratic Party primary, then why shouldn't you always err on the side of hawkishness?

Comments

Matt:

Is it that you no longer believe that "the use of unilateral military force as a tool of non-proliferation policy was a good idea" or that Bush really perverted the word "preventive"?

In other words, is it still a good idea, in your view, to use unilateral military force as a tool of non-prolifiration policy when the nuclear missiles of an unfriendly government are lined up ready to be fired?

Or would you say there are other ways to deal with that situation, and unilateral military force is forbidden?

Posted by allys gift | November 20, 2007 8:37 AM

I'm with the first commenter, and I would part company with anyone who thought that the unilateral use of military force was by definition a bad idea. I'd also part company with anyone who thought that all existing regimes in the world had a moral and/or legal claim on immunity from being overthrown, regardless of what they did internally or externally. I have a lot of problems with the war in Iraq, not surprisingly since it's been an unqualified disaster, but every time someone calls the war "immoral," I tune out because the claim itself strikes me as depraved.

Posted by Rich | November 20, 2007 8:43 AM

Did the war campaign of 2002-03 really revolve around the question of contending principles of the best way to achieve popular liberation & nuclear non-proliferation? I kinda remember it differently. Not to take a dark view of the political economy of this caper, but I remember a sort of diehard Socialist Workers Party/ International Action Center opposition fired by straight-out anti-imperialism, and then a slight majority of the congressional Dems fearfully opposing a war their would-be presidential candidates were already embracing. Principles seem to have little to do with a situation where scared Dems - like HRC - were falling all over themselves crowing about their shoulders, and where they stood in relation to those of the president.

Not to be a cad, but it seems like its always ex-war supporters turned opponents who talk about the principles involved in the war decision. To be fair, the whole political world is still in a kind of shock, I think, over the fact that the absence entire of WMD meant the extreme left was really the only political force who "got it right", at least in the sense of correctly reading the tea leaves of Iraqi state power, threat level, etc.

And the real basis of that correct assessment was refusing to be so insanely cavalier about the means and ends of using preventive unilateral military force to create liberty. This shock doctrine business, where elites talked openly of just slapping the shit out of Iraq, struck me as a sad sign of emotional and intellectual decline on the part o' the punditry.

(anyway, love your blog, thanks for all the productivity, you make a man dream of the day when he too will be paid to be pajama-clad. and, in re cormac mccarthy, read blood meridian. for reals, that book rocks it, and expresses a truth about american expansion that, for me, is part of why I'm a Barack man on the question of the crucial importance of judgment over tough-guy hawkishness.)

Posted by billy | November 20, 2007 9:01 AM

Rich, I don't think overthrowing Saddam in itself was "immoral". It's hard to argue that external force would eventually be required to remove his regime, and create some kind of occupation afterwards of which US troops and money would be absolutely vital. As long as Saddam remained in power, the middle east would never be truly stable.

But the war as presented was dishonest, and in that sense it was immoral. I think a lot of this ties directly into the Bush administration's need, courtesy of Karl Rove, to seek maximum political advantage out of everything, even a national crisis. It would have been possible to have an honest debate about the "bigger picture" of fighting terrorism without conflating Saddam and al Qaeda. But the chance to knock off a few extra Dems during the war fever that defined the 2002 midterms was so much sweeter.

Posted by sweaty guy | November 20, 2007 9:05 AM

The unavoidable conclusion from this post is that Yglesias has suffered from some kind of brain damage. What, pray tell, is "preventive" about attempting to bring to a satisfactory conclusion a war we had been engaged in since 1991? Or about enforcing a comprehensively violated ceasefire agreement? Or a world-record number of violated Chapter VII UNSC Resolutions?

One of the biggest mistakes the Bush people made, among many, was totally muddying the waters on Iraq with the promiscuous proliferation of "justifications". Instead of sticking to the facts, as Lord Goldsmith did in his admirably concise finding (published on the front page of The Guardian in mid-March 2003), the Bush people banged on endlessly about rape rooms, kiddie torture, mushroom clouds, Al Qaeda, aluminum tubes, yellowcake, etc. etc. ad nauseum, producing less consensus than justification fatigue. The actual invasion came as something of a relief.

There is a perfectly good case to be made for preventive action, but Iraq was clearly not it. Condoleeza Rice tried to make this point a few times, but was drowned out by all the whooping and yelling about soap opera/scams like The Downing Street Memos and L'Affaire d'Plame. Nonetheless, someone of Yglesias' prominence should know the facts.

Posted by Robert Powell | November 20, 2007 9:09 AM

The answer is, in American politics, you are always rewarded and eternally respected for erring (literally) on the side of hawkishness.

Posted by El Cid | November 20, 2007 9:21 AM

Last time I checked Senator Hillary Clinton is not former President William Clinton, and it is Senator Clinton who is running for office not Bill.

Also the last time I checked Senator Hillary Clinton is much, much more conservative than Bill Clinton and has recently even taken to alluding to her childhood Republicanism as a good thing.

So let's be clear here: Is it Senator Hillary Clinton who is running for office or former President William Clinton? If the former, is she her own person or just a puppet for Bill? If her own person (and I think she is) then let's talk about what _she_ says and does.

Cranky

Posted by Cranky Observer | November 20, 2007 9:42 AM

Let's all be honest here, if Hillary Clinton had a penis, the women who make up the majority of the Democratic party base wouldn't be giving her a pass about all of this. They wouldn't be making up excuses for her votes, saying that she had no choice or the big bad men would make fun of her. If Hillary was a man, she'd be mired with the also rans like her ideological twin, Joe Biden.

Posted by soullite | November 20, 2007 9:55 AM

Matt, you're making exactly the same rhetorical mistake that the neocons have made all along--you're conflating "military force" with "invasion and occupation."

There is occasionally a time and a place for a unilateral preventive airstrike. Or a naval blockade. Or what have you. There is never a time and a place for unilateral preventive invasion and occupation.

Any foreign policy discussion that boils down to questions of force and aggression, without distinguishing between a military strike and full-scale war followed by half-assed nation-building, is doomed to being as inane and pointless as a Jonah Goldberg column.

Posted by LaFollette Progressive | November 20, 2007 9:56 AM

If the first two comments are accepted then George W. Bush has indeed accomplished one of the core objectives of his excellent Iraqi adventure, removing the Unites States military from the constraints of United Nations rules concerning the use of military force.

If Democrats argue in favor of our right to intervene militarily in a unilateral fashion then the United Nations has become utterly irrelevant going forward.

Despite certain flaws in the UN system, moving away from a system of international law that constrains the use of military force simply is not in the long term interests of the United States in light of the fact that we constitute less than 5% of the global population and our economy is declining (in a relative sense) against the global economy.

Long term, US military hegemony is unsustainable and unaffordable. Thus, a system of international law would seem essential for our interests.

Posted by Bill White | November 20, 2007 9:56 AM

I agree with Bill White up to a point, that point being that as currently used by many people "international law" is as much a mythical creature as the unicorn. When the Secretary General of the UN says that it's "illegal" for members of the Security Council to enforce that body's most serious sanctions, the jig is pretty much up. If the "certain flaws" prevent the UN from actually doing anything useful about wars of aggression, genocide, the proliferation and use of wmd's, etc., it has about as much bearing on international law as Santa Claus. Maybe less.

Posted by Robert Powell | November 20, 2007 10:09 AM

The unavoidable conclusion from this post is that Yglesias has suffered from some kind of brain damage. What, pray tell, is "preventive" about attempting to bring to a satisfactory conclusion a war we had been engaged in since 1991? Or about enforcing a comprehensively violated ceasefire agreement? Or a world-record number of violated Chapter VII UNSC Resolutions?

What was missing in 2003 was a consensus at the United Nations that regime change was the appropriate remedy for those violations.

The original Gulf War was made legitimate by UN approval. It is difficult to stretch that approval to cover Dubya's actions when the UN itself seems to not agree with Dubya's interpretation.

But then I believe that unleashing the US military from UN shackles was the deeper objective underlying Saddam's 2003 removal. Especially since there were no WMD programs in Iraq and the world is filled with noxious dictators also deserving of regime change from a human rights point of view.

= = =

Also, had Bush 43 simply said "My Daddy made a mistake by not removing Saddam in 1990 -- a mistake based on hope, but a mistake as proven by the last 12 years" -- that rationale could have gained traction.

But I also submit that Dubya (& Rove) tried to fight three enemies simultaneously:

1. Saddam (who was a fish in a barrel, even if nation-building thereafter may prove many bridges too far);

2. The United Nations (see above) with respect to the euro-weenie shackles placed on the US military.

3. American liberals, who would be crushed forever by the triumphs of a successful wastrel youth turned triumphant warrior king. (At the time of the Mission Accomplished carrier appearance, analogies were being made linking Dubya with Shakespeare's Henry V -- like "Heh!" said I at the time.)

= = =

(1) Had we removed Saddam and then promptly given control of Iraqi reconstruction to the UN and (2) had Dubya shared the credit with leading Democrats then the mission of Saddam removal might have been accomplished successfully.

Dubya, however, played for overtricks and flopped and therefore POTUS #44 (whoever he or she may be) needs to mend fences with the United Nations, on the topic of unilateral use of US military power.

At least IMHO.

Posted by Bill White | November 20, 2007 10:12 AM

Had we removed Saddam and then promptly given control of Iraqi reconstruction to the UN and (2) had Dubya shared the credit with leading Democrats then the mission of Saddam removal might have been accomplished successfully.

And had the Bolsheviks, upon taking over Russia, governed with a respect for human rights and the democratic process, Communism might've become a more popular political system. But there was never the slightest chance of that happening either.

Trying to separate the half-assed justification for the Iraq War from the war's incompetent execution is a meaningless exercise. I will wax philosophical and say that every stupid plan contains the seeds of its own failure.

Posted by James Gary | November 20, 2007 10:22 AM

Powell, that was a war we were in from 1992-2003? Really? How high are you? Just because two nations are unfriendly doesn't mean that it's war. Hell, a couple of years ago Canada shot shells as warning shots over Danish ships. Morocco and Spain had a spat over the Parsley Islands that Powell had to mediate. These weren't actually wars. Technically, we're still at war with North Korea, but it would be stupid to say "hey, why has this war been going on so long? Let's end it!" Hussein was a dunce in his own little box who once in a while could be annoying to us. However, when you have real threats out there like al-Qaida and more important challenges like helping to stabilize Pakistan towards a stable equilibrium and finding a way to end the Israeli-Palestinian crisis and larger humanitarian crises like Darfur and Burma, maybe they should be a priority. You just end up looking more and more like a crazy person the more you talk.

Posted by Reality Man | November 20, 2007 10:25 AM

As citizens, let us also retain our own capacity for individual thought, no matter how many governments may either from their own volition or from pressures and arm twisting declare that some idiotic war or subversion is necessary, good, and effective. This style of argument that such & such high muggledy-mooks thought an invasion of Iraq inevitable and necessary and how dare you question their judgment since after all they were Democratic / UN / European / whatever is a fake and cowardly dodge for a real argument, and a vain and shallow attempt to argue from authority alone.

Posted by El Cid | November 20, 2007 10:40 AM

Matt:
"I did, however, believe that the use of unilateral military force as a tool of non-proliferation policy was a good idea."

Have you reconsidered this stance in the light of the evidence that non-proliferation was always just a scam by the Bush administration to pursue an invasion that they wanted for other reasons?

Rich:
"but every time someone calls the war "immoral," I tune out because the claim itself strikes me as depraved."

Wow. "Depraved", huh? I don't think that word means what you think it means.

If there has ever been an immoral war fought by the United States, the invasion of Iraq was it. I don't "get" people who think morality is just a concept for simple and easy situations. Hundreds of thousands of people have been killed as a result of Bush's narcissistic invasion and you consider usage of the word "immoral" to be depraved?

We're not only not on the same page, I think we're reading completely different books when it comes to morality.

If the war wasn't "immoral", what was it? "Moral"? "Amoral"? Or does it exist on some axis completely orthogonal to questions of morality?

I can understand having a debate about the morality of the war. I cannot understand a person so insulated to the war that he thinks even discussing its morality is "depraved". What, does that make you a "tough" guy or something? To be morally callous?

Well, you sure as hell have turned the meaning of the word "depraved" on its head, that's for sure.

You may "part company" with people who think nations have a "moral and/or legal claim" to be exist as independent states without threat of external invasion, but it's worth saying that your attitude towards foreign policy was discarded approximately 100 years ago. As bad as the 20th century was for violent wars, at least there was some lip service given to the notion that maybe war is a bad idea and we shouldn't countenance all the arbitrary rationalizations and justifications for war that have been used historically.

As to the "moral claim", there's not much point arguing morality with somebody who views the entire concept as "depraved", but as to the legal question, you are squarely in the wrong. Whether you think it's advisable for the US President to be breaking laws by invading countries, the question as to whether his actions are, strictly speaking, "legal" has a definite answer, and in most cases the answer is "no". It really is illegal for the US President to launch invasions of other nations just because he wants to. There is controlling law regarding this question on the books.

Americans really have a breathtaking arrogance when it comes to the usage of military force. This does not portend well. Morality really is something a bit deeper than "hey, let's feel good about ourselves!"

Posted by Whispers | November 20, 2007 11:00 AM

Whispers,

I agree with most of what you say, but there is a distinction in there that I want to point out. There is a difference between the rights of a nation and its government.

I believe that if it were possible to remove a foreign government and replace it with something better for the nation, then that government would have no moral claim to not being overthrown. In general, I do not believe a corrupt government has such a claim. But the moral imperative against war flows from the damage inflicted on the nation one is invading. For example: various African nations are no more than kleptocracies. It would not be hard to imagine governments that would be an upgrade. On the other hand, the cost of getting there may be quite high. I am not sure if this is because of a newfound nationalism around the world, modern access to cheap guns or if this has just always been the case. But the point people like Rich are missing is just because the host government has no right to rule, does not mean we have a right to invade.

Posted by mpowell | November 20, 2007 11:23 AM

Drum says:

That's how I feel too, though trying to define what any of us really mean by this is maddeningly difficult.

It's only "maddeningly difficult" if you insist on trying to discuss the topic without bringing up all those touchy Middle East unmentionables. But it's not difficult for me at all: Israel and imperialism.

Read Clinton's speech outside the UN during the 2006 Israeli-Lebanese war; read her speech to Aipac this year; read her speech at the Wilson Center last year; read the totality of her comments on Iran and other states in the region. The implications are clear.

The defense of Israel and total acquiescence in Israel's strategic goals in the region, as seen from the perspective of Israeli governments and Aipac, are the very centerpiece of her Middle East policy. Hillary Clinton has made the strategic political calculation that there is no such thing as being too pro-Israel in American politics. Clinton kissed Arafat's wife once and was hammered for it by the pro-Israel legions. She must have decided then and there, "Never again; I'm drinking the Kool-aid." She has since then thoroughly bought in and sold out. She's even more of and Israel-firster than her husband, which is saying something.

It's about rolling back Syria; its about rolling back Iran; it's about routing Hizbollah in Lebanon; it's about remaining silent or even cheerleading for every Israeli outrage that occurs, while reserving criticism entirely for the outrages of Israel's enemies; its about empty Palestine pablum, and no real pressure on Israel to do anything about the Palestinian problem that Israel isn't planning to do anyway. It's about expanding the size of our ground forces in part so that we can continue to engage in Middle East interventions to challenge Israel's many actual and potential enemies.

Where it comes to Israel and the Middle East, the only difference between Hillary Clinton on the one hand, and Charles Krauthammer or Bill Kristol on the other, is that Clinton prefers to rely on more political subtlety and less up-front belligerence, and has more skill in canning Aipac's crap for sale to Democratic audiences.

Her Middle East policy is an activist agenda to accomplish Israel's strategic goals. Now if you think Israel's strategic interests in the region and US strategic interests in the region coincide perfectly, then she's your candidate. But if you think this Israel-and-Aipac ass-kissing is detrimental to the security of the United States, is one of the reasons why we are in the current mess we are in, and puts the security of our children in jeopardy, then you should look elsewhere.

The US is constructing massive permanent military bases, naval platforms and a gargantuan "embassy" in Iraq. Iraq is being transformed before our eyes into the central political and military headquarters for a permanent US imperial presence in the heart of the Middle East, built to last for years and years and years. All this stuff about "residual forces" for training and terrorism-hunting is just bunk. That's how our foreign policy elites have decided to sell Iraq-headquartered imperialism to the masses. Clinton is totally on board with the idea of a permanent US occupation transitioning over time to a massive permanent "presence" in Iraq. Again, if those are you proclivities as well, then go ahead and vote for her. She's your candidate.

Drum's notion that there is some ineffable hawkish something about Clinton's foreign policy, but one can't quite put one's finger on it, is just insipid.

Posted by Dan Kervick | November 20, 2007 11:28 AM

In my view, and the view in 2003 of the leaders of most of the world's important democracies minus those on Saddam's payroll, the consensus at the UN was established in the unanimous "final opportunity" Resolution 1441. Lord Goldsmith's finding is easily available, and well worth reading on this.

Security Council Resolutions authorizing "all available means", like the original one on Iraq, do not have sunset clauses. The idea that this authorization, which was not only for the ejection of Iraq from Kuwait but for the "return the area to peace and stability", somehow just melted away on its own, seems most unlikely. That it would do so in the continuous presence of Iraqi violations, combat operations, including the embargo (itself an act of war) that killed a million Iraqis, is absurd.

I think White's right about what Dubya "should have said", but I don't feel confident about reading his mind on the UN. It certainly seems true that Colin Powell was serious about it, and overall the Administration spent more time there than any other since Truman, or maybe ever. I do know that none of the world's dictators had a record anything like Iraq's in terms of the UN, and of getting us into a war and then refusing to meet its ceasefire obligations, including North Korea.

As someone who deployed to the region during the period in question and lost friends there, I can assure "Reality" Man that we thought it was a real war, as I'm sure did the Iraqis we killed and their families, although I guess it didn't rate much attention in the frat house TV lounge.

Posted by Robert Powell | November 20, 2007 11:31 AM

Matt: intellectual discussions on what Bill Clinton did or did not do is pretty useless. The stage now set is a Bush invention. Looking at this from Europe or Asia the actions of a Democratic President will be viewed in the context of that person's need to project strength and purpose as reflected by US needs. Hillary is more hawkish than Bill, and until she is in office and acts on her convictions we are pretty much in the dark. Even Obama and Edwards are far from clear about what they will actually do when in office. My guess is that they too will want to be a world leader. That arrogant assumption is both our strength and weakness: more so nowadays.

However if the Democrats have a softer edge to their approach rely on the Republicans to point that out. Too much of the think tank stuff looks like the generation of paperwork to justify holding on a fellowship; little is of use to policy making.The reality is that we do not know what a President will face until a catastrophic event occurs. That is when it become a matter of action and not talk.

Posted by Alan | November 20, 2007 11:44 AM

Until we can break free of our linkage to Israel no American President will have the moral authority so necessary to project legitimate power. Until then we will be viewed by those at the receiving end of our threats, warnings, cruise missile strikes etc as selective dispensers of US punishment. A Democratic president will be just as hobbled as a Republican one especially on Middle east affairs.

Posted by senitnel | November 20, 2007 11:49 AM

"In my view, and the view in 2003 of the leaders of most of the world's important democracies minus those on Saddam's payroll, the consensus at the UN was established in the unanimous "final opportunity" Resolution 1441. Lord Goldsmith's finding is easily available, and well worth reading on this."

But in the view of the majority of UN members, Iraq was compying with this resolution. Moreover, most of the UN members felt that the best way of dealing with the Iraq issue at the time was to let the UN inspectors under Hans Blix continue doing their work, not to launch an invasion in March 2003. BTW, it turned out that they were right.

Posted by eltoro | November 20, 2007 11:52 AM

Israel's strategic goals in the region are pretty modest, and they don't have any goals in the region that aren't narrowly focused on the preservation of Israel--including some territory that most people outside Israel consider ill-gotten, of course. But the suggestion that Israel has some kind of wider agenda, e.g. for resources or for regimes of a certain kind (beyond "regimes that don't want to destroy Israel"), seems out of whack to me. Israel is so culturally distinct from its neighbors that it doesn't really have any interest (or interests) in the region.

Posted by Rich | November 20, 2007 11:56 AM

MPowell, you do realize that you have essentially come out against the very idea of democracy, don't you? That's the bottom line, without a right to self determination, there is no such thing as Democracy. You have decided that people do not have an inherent right to self determination. you believe outside actors have the right to force a situation on them. No matter how noble you may think your reasoning is, it is the root of the vast majority of evil over the last 300 years.

Rich-- so... you really don't actually know anything about the middle east, do you? I mean, you just wrote the most idiotic thing possible. You wrote something that left out any discussion of water resources, farm land, mineral deposits, and racism. You either purposefuly ignored these issues to make a bizarre argument that Israel would only expand it's territory if the people surrounding it were culturally identical to them. What war between separate nations has ever been conducted because the two nations were to similar to one another?

Posted by soullite | November 20, 2007 12:05 PM

But the suggestion that Israel has some kind of wider agenda, e.g. for resources or for regimes of a certain kind (beyond "regimes that don't want to destroy Israel"), seems out of whack to me.

Wow.

You could go on far afield from here but a decent starting place would a decent history of the Israel's invasion of Lebanon in the 80's. Their goals kept diminishing (in ways identical to ours in Iraq), but they had some lofty ambitions going in.

Posted by Ed Marshall | November 20, 2007 12:16 PM

is it still a good idea, in your view, to use unilateral military force as a tool of non-prolifiration policy when the nuclear missiles of an unfriendly government are lined up ready to be fired?

It's an obvious batshit insane idea, frankly. You want to start a nuclear war?

And speaking of batshit insane . . .

Reality man: Powell, that was a war we were in from 1992-2003? Really?

Robert Powell: As someone who deployed to the region during the period in question and lost friends there, I can assure "Reality" Man that we thought it was a real war . . .

That's a very curious asertion, Mr. Powell, because there are zero acknowledged allied casualities from enemy fire during the period in question. I suspect that you are a fake and a fraud.

http://www.historyguy.com/no-fly_zone_war.html

Posted by rea | November 20, 2007 12:26 PM

"What war between separate nations has ever been conducted because the two nations were to similar to one another?"

That's a great question, Soulite.

The only example I can think of is the Austro-Prussian War of 1866, which grew out of the rivalry between two imperialistic Germanic powers. The defeat of Austria by Prussia in this war ultimately led to the formation of the nation-state of Germany, under Prussian dominance.

Posted by eltoro | November 20, 2007 1:25 PM

Matt has the politics exactly right, and it ain't a pretty picture. I don't agree that if Hillary was a man she wouldn't get this pass; or rather, it makes no sense to talk about "if Hillary were a man," since her unique political position in the Democratic party stems from the fact that she was First Lady in a Democratic White House for eight years, during which her husband's policies are widely perceived to have been pretty successful. Plus, her whole family was the object of vicious partisan attacks throughout those eight years. This is why she's getting a pass from liberal Democrats. Plenty of women are supporting her because she's a woman, sure. But there are lots of liberal Democrats who are motivated by a combination of ideology, issues, and partisanship. What HRC's success (so far) reveals is the strength of the partisanship element, and the intense attachment of many active Democrats to the man they perceive as the most successful Democratic leader in many years, in both policy terms and political terms. (Don't even get me started about Bill Clinton's overrated political skills and successes; he helped lose both houses of Congress and won two presidential elections with pluralities.)

I find it quite depressing, because neither Clinton has ever really been a liberal Democrat, as far as I can see--defined in terms of issues or ideology. In other words, HRC is the frontrunner because oodles of liberal Democrats prove uninterested in having a liberal nominee. And it's not simply because they think a liberal nominee is unelectable; that was more the dominant thinking in 1992. In 2007, many liberals either seem to think that HRC is a liberal when she's not and has made little effort to argue that she is, or else seem terribly confused about the whole question of ideology. These are the liberals, mind you.

The bottom line: the Democratic party may be dead as a vehicle for liberalism. Which may mean that liberalism is dead.

Posted by Doug | November 20, 2007 1:30 PM

Ed- I take your point, but that's really my point. Israel didn't care about who ruled Lebanon or how it was ruled. They cared only about the consequences for Israeli security (narrowly defined) of the Palestinian refugee commmunities in Lebanon, and they invaded Lebanon first to smash those centers of Palestinian power, and then (since as you point out, they kept reducing their stated goals) to establish a sanitized border zone.

I'm not claiming that Israel has refrained from violence against its neighbors--only that the strategic agenda of that violence has been, compared to the geo-political-resource-Wilsonian cauldron behind US policy, pretty straightforward and modest. I only raised this point because a previous commenter referred to some Israeli agenda in the region, which to me is a malapropism.

Posted by Rich | November 20, 2007 2:50 PM

Shouldn't HC be given some credit for political skill, for an accurate read of where the public stands and of what positions she can successfully defend in debates with the Mad Mayor?

Then ponder this:
"The Zogby International survey shows 52 percent of Americans would support a strike on Iran, while 53 percent expect President Bush to launch such an attack before the end of his second term. Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton is voters' No. 1 choice to deal with Iran, with 21 percent saying they would like to see her take on Tehran from the White House. Republican Rudy Giuliani was voters' second choice, with 15 percent."

HC is a mainstream Democrat. The most likely nominee of the Republican party is even more dangerous than Bush has proven to be. Every policy statement Democratic candidates issue must be evaluated in light of the Prime Imperative: prevent Rudy Giuliani from taking command of the American armed forces.

Posted by Scared | November 20, 2007 3:11 PM

rea-
look up "Khobar Towers". It was all about Iraq. You could also ponder this DoD statistic:

Number of US soldiers who have died in combat or not-combat situations while on duty since 2001: 9,185 (as of June '07)

Number who died on duty during the Clinton years: 7,500.

Tens of thousands of US troops deployed to the Persian Gulf between 1991 and 2003. Their sacrifice, and that of their families, not to mention what was being done to the Iraqis, needs to be acknowledged partisan politics notwithstanding.

eltoro-"the majority of UN members" is not The World Legislature. It's mostly a collection of cronies and family-members of dictators. The Security Council isn't a World Legislature either, but it's the closet thing we've got to a responsible international body, and those who advocate giving a free pass to genocidal totalitarianisms for violating it's most important sanctions should stfu about "international law".

Posted by Robert Powell | November 20, 2007 4:15 PM

Robert Powell,

Resolution 1441 does say that if Iraq has not taken its “final chance” to disarm, “serious consequences” are likely to follow. But there is nothing in the resolution that gives anyone apart from the Security Council itself the right to decide when the final chance has been exhausted, or, more importantly, to determine exactly what those consequences should. Even Lord Goldsmith, whom you cite, acknowledged in his memo that "the language of resolution 1441 leaves the position unclear and the statements made on adoption of the resolution suggest that there were differences of view within the Council as to the legal effect of the resolution."

The reason the UN kept passing resolutions (& implemented draconian sanctions) against Iraq under Chapter VII was because the US & UK demanded it. Other countries felt that the US was exaggerating the threat posed by Saddam’s failure to comply with weapon inspections, and, in retrospect, they were absolutely right. So to the extent that disarming Saddam became a test of the UN’s credibility, that’s due to the US/UK’s obsession with Saddam in the first place.

Posted by Peter H | November 20, 2007 6:05 PM

Peter--
In the first place, it's a dreadful mistake to confuse Goldsmith's "memo", which was a generalized political discussion of all sorts of ideas and proposals intended to be "in house" that was leaked in an attempt to discredit the Blair government, with his actual legal finding. Goldsmith's finding for Parliament, which is what I cite and the document with legal bearing, makes it absolutely clear that the authorization from the original Resolution through 1441 needs to be seen as a cumulative whole. His logic is unshakable, and was agreed with by the governments of most of the world's most important democracies.

In the second place, as the Duelfer report made clear, massive amounts of evidence substantiates the fact that Saddam's number one goal was the lifting of sanctions, and the return to wmd production for which Iraq had all the most important resources, including a carefully-maintained scientific establishment.

In the event, there could be no doubt in anyone's mind exactly what "serious consequences" meant given the buildup which had forced the return of UN inspectors, or of the fact that Iraq remained in flagrant material breech. At that point Chirac stated that France would block meaningful enforcement of 1441 in ALL CIRCUMSTANCES, leaving the choice of invasion or surrender.

The real difficulty with all the current revisionism is that it tends to totally ignore the costs, especially to the Iraqi people, of what was going on between 1991 and the invasion. We were pretty oblivious in official circles at the time too. Most of the Iraqi people seemed quite accepting of the fact that Al Qaeda targeted the UN as one of the first major acts of their campaign. Our assumption that after all they'd been through the Iraqis would quickly accept foreign, including UN, occupation was tragically wrong, and we should have known better.

Posted by Robert Powell | November 20, 2007 11:45 PM

"and those who advocate giving a free pass to genocidal totalitarianisms for violating it's most important sanctions should stfu about "international law"."

How was Saddam Husseing being given a free pass? He was being subjected to UN inspections for WMD, and his expansionist ambitions were thwarted, as a direct result of sanctions. As you pointed out, Saddam's number one goal was to get the sanctions lifted, because so long as they were in place, his ability to proceed with WMD production was impeded. So stop your bullshit about how our choices in March 2003 were limited to invasion or surrender. Remember that Bush's own weapons inspection team discovered that Saddam's alleged WMD stockpiles did not exist; therefore your argument that Saddam was in a flagrant material breach of Resolution 1441 is simply a lie, as is your assertion that Chirac intended to block any and all enforcement of said resolution. Chirac did not believe that enforcing 1441 required an invasion, and it turns out he was right, and you and your buddy Dubya were dead wrong. So if anybody needs to STFU, Robert Powell, it is you.

Posted by eltoro | November 21, 2007 11:33 AM

"The real difficulty with all the current revisionism is that it tends to totally ignore the costs, especially to the Iraqi people, of what was going on between 1991 and the invasion. We were pretty oblivious in official circles at the time too. Most of the Iraqi people seemed quite accepting of the fact that Al Qaeda targeted the UN as one of the first major acts of their campaign. Our assumption that after all they'd been through the Iraqis would quickly accept foreign, including UN, occupation was tragically wrong, and we should have known better."

Robert Powell,

If anybody is guilty of a revisionism that ignores the facts about the suffering of the Iraqi people, it is you. Our occupation is more than "tragically wrong"; it is an unmitigated fucking disaster. As bad as the Iraqis suffered under the sanctions placed under Iraq, it takes a willfull blindness at best to the facts to argue that a sectarian civil war is a better situation. If you continue to ignore and downplay that extremely salient fact, then you are guilty of a callous indifference to the plight of the Iraqi people as well. Your protest that war opponents are guilty of ignoring the suffering of the Iraqis is akin to a man who murdered his parents and then pleads for mercy since he is an orphan. The level of gall that it demonstrates is utterly contemptible.

Posted by eltoro | November 21, 2007 11:46 AM

eltoro-your emotional response is in direct proportion to your ignorance, and eagerness to protect it. If you were diligent enough to actually familiarize yourself with the terms of the relevant sanctions, you'd know that Iraq's obligation was to disarm "pro-actively and transparently", which it manifestly refused to do per Hans Blix--ergo "flagrant material breech". It was not up to the world community to play hide and seek, and your misunderstanding of the basics here is poor grounds for sanctimonious preaching.

Chirac's statement is a matter of public record.

With all due respect to your expertise on circumstances on the ground in Iraq at the moment, and, based on your comments here, in Iraq for the last twenty years, you should be reading rather than posting. Zealous frothing in defense of a narrow partisan interpretation of an inadequate sample of the historical facts, seasoned with the occasional outright fabrication, would be contemptible if done by a grownup. You sound more like a kid with good intentions, so you have the opportunity to educate yourself and improve. Good luck.

Posted by Robert Powell | November 21, 2007 5:46 PM