Courage

I think it bears mentioning that, in my view, the debate that's broken out in comments here and periodically elsewhere around the web as to whether or not it took any particular political courage for Barack Obama to oppose the war in the fall of 2002 is a bit irrelevant. Whatever you may say about Hillary Clinton, pro or con, she obviously didn't take the position she did on Iraq because of short term political calculations. Clinton wasn't up for re-election until 2006. For people in her position, the cynical calculus and the substantive calculus wound up giving very similar answers.

For Clinton, the politically smart thing to do was to make her best judgment as to whether or not a vote for war would look smart in retrospect, and vote accordingly. Someone in Obama's position didn't face any real political risks in any direction. But the only cynical reason to speak out strongly against the war would have been a conviction that such speaking out would look smart in retrospect. Basically, political and substantive judgments track very closely.

It's different for someone facing the Max Cleland scenario of a tough 2002 re-election battle where you might really think that an invasion would be a long-run disaster but that you had no choice other than to support it. Neither Clinton nor Obama were in that position. Both could have gotten away with saying or doing just about anything. But both were ambitious people looking to do things that would look smart in the medium- to long-run. And only Obama did, in fact, do something that looks smart in retrospect. To mention the book once again, one argument I make is that while it's hardly a law of nature that "good policy is good politics" when it comes to something like Iraq it's really difficult to get the politics right in a vacuum. It makes a ton of sense, even in the most cynical possible terms, to try to build your political strategy on a foundation of sound substantive judgment.

Comments

Right. Iraq's a special case though, because a bad war is something that is going to get real attention, whereas failed legislation of other kinds (like, for instance, if welfare reform was actually a bad thing (I'm not saying that it was)) isn't usually covered that much and tends to be ignored by the public at large even when it is. So there are a lot of political positions a politician can take that can be made cynically without concern one way or the other whether those positions are sound. Gun control, for instance-empirically it doesn't seem to matter which way you go with it-but choosing a side gets a politician a lot of cred from certain swathes of the electorate.

Posted by gerontion | February 5, 2008 1:24 PM

It makes a ton of sense, even in the most cynical possible terms, to try to build your political strategy on a foundation of sound substantive judgment.

I agree. Why do you suppose that few people in a position to do so follow this rational, sensical formula?

Posted by mike | February 5, 2008 1:25 PM

For Clinton, the politically smart thing to do was to make her best judgment as to whether or not a vote for war would look smart in retrospect, and vote accordingly.

Or you might think that a vote against war could look very, very bad, but a vote for the war wouldn't be held against you. Which I seem to recall as what is usually described as the decision process. And who knows? She might be right. She's still the expected winner.

Posted by SomeCallMeTim | February 5, 2008 1:25 PM

This is just silly. Hillary was the Senator from NYC---absolute ground-zero for all the crazy neoconish donors---AND she was obviously eyeing a run for the presidency at some point in the near or slightly less near future.

Remember back in 1991, when lots of prominent Democrats in the Senate opposed the first Iraq War, and thereby say their presidential possibilities disintegrate? Hillary certainly remembered, since that's the main reason SHE ended up in the White House instead of one of them.

She seems a very calculating sort of politician, which is why she (probably) be reluctant to start another risky war since she's now seen how it's pretty much destroyed Bush and the Republicans.

Posted by RKU | February 5, 2008 1:28 PM

as to whether or not it took any particular political courage for Barack Obama to oppose the war in the fall of 2002

May I just take a moment to point out that taking the hawk position never requires political courage? That probably has something to do with the fact that the US is the overwhelming military super power on this planet.

But, in American politics, proposing that we solve problem X by blowing up country Y risks absolutely nothing, politically. In fact, it's such an impregnable position that it's actually harder to explain why solving problem X by blowing up country Y is a bad idea, like being confronted with a complex question fallacy in a debate.

Just a thought.
.

Posted by Grand Moff Texan | February 5, 2008 1:30 PM

Matt, your post is hard to decipher.

HRC likely supported the war because she wanted to be president and she and Bill reflexively move right whenever they are running for office.

Why did John Kerry support it or Edwards? Could it be they wanted to be president? And Kerry lost I think because he seemed like an opportunistic "flip flopper" who took whatever position would poll best. As is Shrum's accursed advice

Is that why Obama voted against authorization?

Anyway, you probably have an insightful comment here, I'm just not getting it. Gotta buy that book:)

Posted by jvoe | February 5, 2008 1:31 PM

Hillary did have a lot of personal reasons to support the war, including the shoring up of her national security credentials. Since to most Americans this requires demonstrating a willingness to send troops to foreign countries to kill and be killed, the Iraq War was really the perfect opportunity for her. I guess I'm not convinced anymore. If she hadn't voted for the war, would our perception of her really be much different? I wish I knew the answer to that question.

Posted by gerontion | February 5, 2008 1:35 PM

Why not take Hillary's word for why she voted the way she did? She was tricked, obviously by someone far more clever than she. Doesn't sound like a good reason to vote for her, but that's her defense of the matter.

Posted by MikeJ | February 5, 2008 1:37 PM

Let's also consider that Hillary's support for war made it harder for dems on the fence to oppose it, since the war was "bipartisan." Since she thinks that her vote was somehow not a vote for war, I don't for a minute take seriously her reporting on her mental state. The consequences were to undermine opposition for people (like Kerry) who maybe could have done so in a different political environment, taking into account a default level of spinelessness.

There is something to the fact that she takes hawkish position to "prove" how tough she is -- this is a concern not just for gender politics and how she's really less of a feminist than she claims, but especially because it reinforces the notion that "seriousness" equals support for absurd wars.

Vote Obama!

Posted by David B. | February 5, 2008 1:46 PM

So, logically speaking:

Positing that the political outcome was based on substantive judgments for both candidates, we see that the substantive judgment of Hillary Clinton was that the Iraq war would be successful, and the substantive judgment of Barack Obama was that the Iraq war would be unsuccessful. Let's also posit that the war has been largely unsuccessful. This would then lead to the determination that, in one of the most important substantive judgments made in the last decade, and probably the most important in both Clinton's and Obama's lives, Obama was right and Clinton was wrong.

Posted by Joel Barciauskas | February 5, 2008 1:47 PM

May I just take a moment to point out that taking the hawk position never requires political courage?

Amen. Thanks, GMT.

Posted by Uncle Kvetch | February 5, 2008 1:48 PM

It's different for someone facing the Max Cleland scenario of a tough 2002 re-election battle where you might really think that an invasion would be a long-run disaster but that you had no choice other than to support it. Neither Clinton nor Obama were in that position.

This underplays the fact that Obama was running for the Senate when he came out against the war. Now, that election was in 2004 and Obama certainly didn't face the same downside risks as Cleland. Still, it was a consequential decision and one that Obama knew his opponents could use against him in a none-too-distant election.

Posted by southpaw | February 5, 2008 1:49 PM

And who knows? She might be right. She's still the expected winner.

If she had voted against the war, she would already be the defacto nominee, as Obama probably wouldn't have even run against her.

That's why I think Matt is making a very good point, although he's taking it a bit too far. The point is not that a cynical politician had to think that going to war would be a good policy in the end in order to support it. Its that he had to think the war would not be a complete disaster in order to support it.

Lots of reasonable people in 2002 could have concluded that it was more likely the war would not be a complete disaster, even though it would be a worse policy than not going to war. To the surprise of many, including me, it indeed turned out to be a complete disaster.

Posted by Jim W | February 5, 2008 1:50 PM

garance said on bloggignheads that she supported the war because everybody else was. it took tremendous courage to argue against the war. people were called traitors and worse if the failed to support it. hillary could have rallied the opposition. she would have been magnificent. but she was afraid that sully & his type would bury her--again.

Posted by jay | February 5, 2008 1:51 PM

As has been pointed out in this thread, you're not likely to lose in American politics by appearing too "tough" on "the enemy." But beyond the normal political calculus, Hillary had a couple of extra considerations thrown in that made it seem pretty much like a required vote if she were seriously considering a run for the Presidency in '08.

(1) She's a girl. And I don't think I have to explain that there's an extra "tough enough to be CIC" hurdle for any female to cross.

(2) She shares the last name of her husband, who is virulently disliked by much of the right wing of the high brass--remember Jesse Helms implying that Clinton would be assassinated if he dared to visit the troops in North Carolina. It's important for a President to have good relations with the military, and Hillary had a lot of work to do to get into that ballpark. (In fact, she has made up a lot of ground with the military through her nose-to-the-grindstone work on the Armed Services Committee, according to my understanding.)

Posted by Trickster | February 5, 2008 1:53 PM

> She seems a very calculating sort of politician,
> which is why she (probably) be reluctant to start
> another risky war since she's now seen how it's
> pretty much destroyed Bush and the Republicans.

Same question as the previous thread: when the Radical Right, Fox, and the rest of the noise machine starts beating the drums for war war war now now NOW YOU PUSILLANIMOUS TRAITOR will Hillary suddenly find the internal courage to oppose them? Because those drums are going to be beating awfully damn loud. Or will she tack and triangulate once again?

Cranky

Posted by Cranky Observer | February 5, 2008 1:54 PM

Beyond the political calculus of any single politician, there is the simple matter of being right or wrong. However one maneuvers oneself to that position.

Obama was right on the war; Clinton was wrong.

This is no small thing. Estimates suggest that there are three million fewer Iraqis in Iraq today than there were five years ago. Studies suggest that up to a third of those are dead, the rest exiled or displaced. Much of that happened in the first two years of the conflict.

I have a choice between a politician who resisted that result, and a politician who, for whatever reason, helped authorize and enable it.

Both funded the occupation in the aftermath of that terrible judgment, but with a quarter of a million American soldiers and civilian contractors abroad, a civil war brewing as a result of the invasion, and a mad President who would not likely have pulled out troops even if they lacked Congressional funding, that to me is a much less straightforward decision (to fund or not to fund).

But the other decision was straightforward. With three million destroyed lives in the balance, rewarding Senator Clinton's failure of political will with the highest office in the land would be morally reprehensible. I could not forgive myself.

Posted by Maxwell | February 5, 2008 1:54 PM

I don't think at the time the authorization was being voted on that people were really open to the possibility that things could be as bad in the White House as they turned out to be. There had been decades of basically sane governance from the executive branch before this came up, and I could see how the Senate would be mostly complacent, and how they would take the claims being made by Bush and company seriously. It has been forgotten just how much the rationalization and execution of this war created a real paradigm shift in people's attitudes about the office of the presidency itself. I was in the Army at the time, and it hit me particularly hard. When I signed up (in 1999), it seemed obvious that in the post-Cold War, post-Vietnam era, if I were sent to a foreign country (say, Serbia) to lay my ass on the line it would be out of a real, compelling need for it. I thought that, irrespective of the politics, savvy people of basically good will would be running things at the top to ensure that I wouldn't be sent on a fool's errand. Then there was the Iraq mess, and for the first time in a generation it became clear just how dangerous, and how completely possible, the mishandling of executive power was. It has evaporated a lot of built-in, institutional trust in the competence of the president that used to exist-that existed when Clinton voted to authorize the war-and when we look back on that today I think we forget how pervasively we took the competency of the executive branch for granted.

Posted by gerontion | February 5, 2008 2:03 PM

I disagree about the cynical and the substantive calculus convergence. Wasn't the zeitgeist at the time that, if you're planning on ever running for President (and if you were a Senator back then, chances of that were high), you voted for the Iraq war because you didn't want to look weak on national security in a general election against a war-time president/make sure you didn't look foolish like those Senators who voted against the Iraq war the first time?

Posted by Chris | February 5, 2008 2:11 PM

For Sen. Clinton, to cast a vote for a war WITHOUT READING the 95-page NIE (none of her staffers had access to) is without a conscience, and can nver be "politically smart". I bet she did read the polls that day. Mr. Clinton calls her a "certified genius" - so 95 pages should have been worth her time. Where is Sen. Graham on all this, after fighting so hard to give the senators access to this crucial document?! On a similar note, Sen. Clinton's approach on the health care reform (my way or the highway, super-secrecy) does not bode well for her possible style of actually governing, esp. since she would face a GOP that is very united against her and will try to ensure she does not get any big political wins. And then we do not need to talk about Bill's Kazakhstan and other fundraising issues - is this how we want the future to look? The Clintons are willing to damage the future of the party for their personal ambitions; we all deserve so much better.....

Posted by Carthage | February 5, 2008 2:13 PM

when we look back on that today I think we forget how pervasively we took the competency of the executive branch for granted.

Wow. I know this is part of the Clinton explanation, i.e. "who knew how incompetent GWB could be?" but seriously. The decision on Iraq had nothing to do with the perceived competence of the president. To all who opposed, including C. Powell, the problem w/ Iraq was that it would lead to a prolonged occupation that would be difficult to get out of and that would serve as a recruiting tool and target for terrorists. Even the most competent President was likely to fail. A President whose life story was catalog of incompetence never stood a chance and Hillary knew that.

Posted by soonest mended | February 5, 2008 2:17 PM

Once again, the debate on Clinton's Iraq record is being compressed into an overly narrow context, as though the only piece of evidence we have to go on was her war authorization vote, and further speculation on her motives for that vote. But Hillary Clinton has a long subsequent record of statements and actions on foreign policy and national security issues since then. And the point is that the same foreign policy orientation reflected by her Iraq vote has been in evidence time after time. So I'm just not buying that this was a one-time glitch or failure of nerve, or a single case of a political desire to project toughness on a high profile issue. Her confrontational position on Iran throughout most of 2006 and 2007; her recklessly belligerent statements during the Lebanon-Israel war in 2006 which dialed up the tension and risk of extended conflict rather than dialing it down; and then her very recent positions on Lieberman-Kyl and Gaza - all of these are of a piece. It doesn't matter if these are her positions because she deeply believes in them, or because she is a calculating panderer, or because she is an insecure person who feels a constant need to project some tough image to over compensate for gender stereotype vulnerabilities. Ultimately it all comes down to the same thing. For whatever reasons she has taken the above positions and staked out that corresponding general policy orientation, those are her positions and that is her policy orientation.

Ultimately, the preeminent issue for me in this election is which candidate I most trust with the life of my son. In the end, I don't trust Hillary Clinton to keep us out of war, to promote peace, security and stability and thereby to keep my son alive and protect his future.

Posted by Dan Kervick | February 5, 2008 2:18 PM

Even the most abject cynic couldn't fail to recognize Obama's sincerity after hearing or reading his amazing 2002 speech found at:

http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Barack_Obama's_Iraq_Speech

His reasons were the right ones. Hillary was probably trying to be macho; ditto for her 2006 Iran vote.

Posted by Tamsin Crozier | February 5, 2008 2:20 PM

Max Cleland, while undoubtedly making what he considered the smart political move, quite obviously made the worst one.

Had he chosen to oppose the Iraq war and had he made a solid case against it, he would have been able to argue against his Republican critics. Instead, he gave voters the option of a Democrat who might support the president's war against the bad guys, versus a Republican who would absolutely do so. Capitulating to his political rivals on the issue just reinforced the perception that he didn't have the stomach to fight.

As Hillary, Kerry and the other Democrats who voted for the AUMF like to point out, it was sort of a vote for war, but not really. They didn't have the courage of their convictions to oppose or favor the use of military force, so they weasled out of the decision instead.

A look at what happened to the members of Congress who voted on the AUMF shows that opposition was the smart political move, in both the short and the long term.

Posted by Jinchi | February 5, 2008 2:22 PM

From Atrios:

>> The Washingotn Post's liberal columnist,
>> Mary McGrory, wrote that Powell “persuaded me,
>> and I was as tough as France to convince.” She
>> even likened the Powell report to the day John
>> Dean “unloaded” on Nixon in the Watergate
>> hearings. Another liberal at that paper,
>> Richard Cohen, declared that Powell’s testimony
>> “had to prove to anyone that Iraq not only
>> hasn’t accounted for its weapons of mass
>> destruction but without a doubt still retains
>> them. Only a fool—or possibly a Frenchman—could
>> conclude otherwise.”

> Click through for the rest of the horror show.

> What did dirty fucking hippie Atrios say? I
> called it "Powell's dud," referred to his
> "dissolving case," made fun of the vial of mass
> destruction,and desperately tried to bring
> attention to the UK's plagiarized "dodgy
> dossier" story.
>
> No one listens to Atrios...

Cranky

Posted by Cranky Observer | February 5, 2008 2:23 PM

Please don't bring up Powell. He was even more disappointing than HRC.

Posted by jay | February 5, 2008 2:24 PM

I was at that speech, and thought that there's something wrong with this country if he doesn't get to be President someday.

Posted by David B. | February 5, 2008 2:24 PM

For whatever reasons she has taken the above positions and staked out that corresponding general policy orientation, those are her positions and that is her policy orientation.

Absolutely.

Posted by soonest mended | February 5, 2008 2:26 PM

Obama has been selectively anti-this war.
I was disappointed by his hedging on funding, timelines and withdrawal. I voted for him this morning but it wasn't because of his "courage".

Disagree with GMT - Intervening in Rwanda or Darfur would have taken courage.

Posted by skeptic | February 5, 2008 2:30 PM

As has been pointed out in this thread, you're not likely to lose in American politics by appearing too "tough" on "the enemy."

As Matt mentioned, Max Cleland might disagree. So might Jean Carnahan and Tom Daschle. George Allen and Rick Santorum lost to anti-war Democrats. Joe Lieberman came within a hair's width of losing his own seat. 11 Senators who voted for the Iraq war gave up their seats to a member of the opposite party. The results in the House were similar.

Now guess what happened to the people who voted against the war.

Posted by Jinchi | February 5, 2008 2:34 PM

Disagree with GMT - Intervening in Rwanda or Darfur would have taken courage.

Intervening there would never have been framed as a clash of civilizations or labor of conquest. I can't see how the hawk position could be reconfigured as a humanitarian relief mission without completely abandoning the kind of rhetoric in question here.

But I agree with you that those did/would have taken courage.

Posted by Grand Moff Texan | February 5, 2008 2:35 PM

I think Obama took great personal risk at coming out publicly against the Iraq War BEFORE it started. It could easily have been the end of his political career. Especially with public sentiment going against his position at that time. There was just no chance of his speech not coming back to haunt him if the war had gone the other way.

So, by his willingness to take that risk, I think he showed others where he drew the line when it comes to military engagement. And, he showed others that he has a moral backbone. What does he oppose? Dumb wars. Not all wars. And, if Clinton had taken the time to really look at all the facts before her, instead of making a political calculation about which way to vote, she would have realized waging war in Iraq was dumb too.

Posted by sbc | February 5, 2008 2:35 PM

I see her war vote as nothing more than political calculation - something we all know drives the Clintons to make their decisions more than anything else. She was faced with two options:
1. Vote against the war and risk being caught on the wrong side of history - Iraq is liberated, peace reigns, democracy is brought to the region. And being wrong is seen as a failure of her judgment and eliminates her chance at winning the presidency.
2. Vote for the war, knowing that if it goes badly Bush will receive the blame. Additionally, she saw that all the potential presidential candidates in the demo party were all voting for the war, giving her a safety net.
Therefore, I don't think the question is whether Obama was courageous or not. Instead, the question is about her willingness to put the country on a path to war because it bettered her presidential ambitions.

Posted by mb | February 5, 2008 2:38 PM

If Clinton had been trying to make a good faith decision, she would have read the full NIE. She did not bother to read it. Ergo, the decision was not made in good faith.

Posted by blah | February 5, 2008 2:46 PM

I have a certain amount of sympathy for Hillary's position. If I remember correctly, the Authorization for the Use of Force was overwhelming favored by the American people - polls at the time showed public support in the upper50s - against in the low 30s. It's not like the vote took place in a vacuum - Senators and Representatives were beseiged by their constituents. Because NY has suffered so traumtically on 9/11, emotions in NY were particularly heightened and raw. It was widely assumed that NYC would be the target if and when there would be another terrorist attack. Remeber all those "Code Orange" days? The information that was given out to the public and to the people on the Hill all leaned heavily toward the Bush case for WMDs and continued terrorism. We have a much better view of Bush's duplicity now than was apparent then - but that's Monday morning quaterbacking to assume that people knew then what they know now - both about Iraq and about Bush in general.

Look at the list of those Senators who voted against the Resolution. How many of them, besides Hillary, were freshman Senators? Almost all who voted against were Senators who had been in the Senate for multiple terms and had acquired the political stature to vote independently from their constituents. I don't think freshman Senators necessarily have that stature, and to a certain degree, on a very emotional and charged issue such as this one, I'm not sure that Hillary could have voted against it just "on principle". Charles Schumer, the other Senator from NY supported the resolution - and no accuses him of only doing for long term political positioning. At some point on some basic levels on very basic issues, the job of Senators and Representatives is to represent what their constituents want, regardless of personal feelings or long-term political jockeying.

Obama had the luxury to oppose the war in 2002 - he wasn't representing a constituency facing a vote the way Clinton did. Notice that once Obama DID represent a constituency, his votes pretty much always align with Hillary.

I think it's too easy for partisans to get too emotional about this and assume that everything is done for some sort of calculated long term political expediency. I see Hillary as doing nothing more than what her constituencts wanted her to do - they were the ones who sent her to Congress, they were the ones whose views and voices she represented. Obama didn't have to do that.

Posted by Ethel-to-Tilly | February 5, 2008 2:46 PM

"It makes a ton of sense, even in the most cynical possible terms, to try to build your political strategy on a foundation of sound substantive judgment."

This involves making the logical leap that at some point in the medium to long term future the conventional wisdom will catch up with what would have been sound substantive judgment at the time. I suppose you could argue that its true in this case, but its hardly a rule of general applicability. Even in this instance, the primary drumbeat against the war was that it was unjustified because Iraq did not participate in 9/11 and posed no threat. Your argument presupposes that the candidates were voting for or against the invasion based solely on whether or not they believed it would be successful, rather than based on justification. In the end, what makes a "ton of sense" as political strategy is to act in a way that you think people will regard favorably in the future. There's really no reason to believe that this is more likely than not to match up with what you believe is sound substantive judgment at the time.

Posted by stanley fatmax | February 5, 2008 2:49 PM

I disagree about the cynical and the substantive calculus convergence. Wasn't the zeitgeist at the time that, if you're planning on ever running for President (and if you were a Senator back then, chances of that were high), you voted for the Iraq war because you didn't want to look weak on national security in a general election against a war-time president/make sure you didn't look foolish like those Senators who voted against the Iraq war the first time?

This is my point exactly. If the first Iraq war had ended up disastrously, those opposing it would have become heroic figures, like Obama is now. Since it ended up being labeled a "good" war, those opposed paid the price. The problem with Matt's point is that, the threshold for being labeled a good war is extremely low. They are only labeled bad if they are truly disastrous.

This is why the cynical thing to do is generally support war, even if you think that, on balance, doing so it bad for America and the world.

Posted by Jim W | February 5, 2008 2:50 PM

> t's not like the vote took place in a vacuum -
> Senators and Representatives were beseiged by
> their constituents. Because NY has suffered so
> traumtically on 9/11, emotions in NY were
> particularly heightened and raw. It was widely
> assumed that NYC would be the target if and when
> there would be another terrorist attack.

That is why taking difficult stands is called "courage" and "leadership". For all his issues later in the war, read the history of Churchill and the Parliament during 1940 - they didn't give in to their fears and let their judgment fly out the window. A Senator is supposed to be one of the best 100 people out of _300 million_ in the United States - not an easily-deceived naif.

Cranky

Posted by Cranky Observer | February 5, 2008 2:52 PM

why not consider the possibility that HRC thought it was the right thing to do at the time? What MY has written is in fact just speculation which a lot of people are taking to be fact.

She had direct experience of Bill's having to deal with Saddam for 8 yrs. Some thing Obama did not have. Similarly with Tony Blair.

Obama's argument rested on the assumption that the means of containing Saddam could go on indefinitely (until Saddam's regime came to end - which didn't look to be happening soon). Now that's a reasonable point but there is another argument that the means of containing Saddam was not sustainable. And it appears that the people who had done the most to contain Saddam - Clinton and Blair - had come to that conclusion.

It was the millitary of the US and Britain under Blair and Clinton that kept Saddam in check - not France, China or Russia who opposed the invasion. It was only the ongoing use and threat of force by the US and Britain that prevented Saddam from causing more trouble. How long was the US and Britain expected to keep that up. It's not like they weren't at war already - there were regular millitary confrontations with Saddam to get him to adhere to UN resolutions.

It's an argument worth considering.

Posted by Neil | February 5, 2008 2:55 PM

I have a certain amount of sympathy for Hillary's position.

I am sympathetic to her position on the 2002 vote. But what about early 2003, when it was clear that Bush would not take "yes" for an answer, and would choose war no matter what (except Saddam abdicating)? She can rationalize the 2002 vote. But she cannot rationalize supporting the war in March 2003 against all prudence and common sense.

Posted by Jim W | February 5, 2008 2:56 PM

jay:
What she doesn't seem to get is that Sully and that ilk will bash her anyway. Hell, he still bashes Gore.

Posted by Joe Klein's conscience | February 5, 2008 3:01 PM

> She had direct experience of Bill's having
> to deal with Saddam for 8 yrs

She also had the experience of HW Bush and Richard Cheney concluding that "going to Baghdad" was a very bad idea. A conclusion shared by most of the US and British generals who published their Gulf War I memoirs in the middle-to-late 1990s, typically expressed as "at the time I thought we should keep going but I now realize that President (HW) Bush was right to stop when we did".

Nothing changed between 1991 and 2003 in terms of the US being able to impose its will on Messopotamia where essentially every invader in 3000 years had failed.

Cranky

Posted by Cranky Observer | February 5, 2008 3:02 PM

Let's talk about the NIE - this is from an account by John Judas and Spencer Ackerman in the New Republic June 30, 2003:

"Graham and Durbin had been demanding for more than a month that the CIA produce an NIE on the Iraqi threat--a summary of the available intelligence, reflecting the judgment of the entire intelligence community--and toward the end of September, it was delivered. Like Tenet's earlier letter, the classified NIE was balanced in its assessments. Graham called on Tenet to produce a declassified version of the report that could guide members in voting on the resolution. Graham and Durbin both hoped the declassified report would rebut the kinds of overheated claims they were hearing from administration spokespeople. As Durbin tells TNR, "The most frustrating thing I find is when you have credible evidence on the intelligence committee that is directly contradictory to statements made by the administration."

"On October 1, 2002, Tenet produced a declassified NIE. But Graham and Durbin were outraged to find that it omitted the qualifications and countervailing evidence that had characterized the classified version and played up the claims that strengthened the administration's case for war. For instance, the intelligence report cited the much-disputed aluminum tubes as evidence that Saddam "remains intent on acquiring" nuclear weapons. And it claimed, "All intelligence experts agree that Iraq is seeking nuclear weapons and that these tubes could be used in a centrifuge enrichment program"--a blatant mischaracterization. Subsequently, the NIE allowed that "some" experts might disagree but insisted that "most" did not, never mentioning that the DOE's expert analysts had determined the tubes were not suitable for a nuclear weapons program. The NIE also said that Iraq had "begun renewed production of chemical warfare agents"--which the DIA report had left pointedly in doubt. Graham demanded that the CIA declassify dissenting portions.

"In response, Tenet produced a single-page letter. It satisfied one of Graham's requests: It included a statement that there was a "low" likelihood of Iraq launching an unprovoked attack on the United States. But it also contained a sop to the administration, stating without qualification that the CIA had "solid reporting of senior-level contacts between Iraq and al-Qaeda going back a decade." Graham demanded that Tenet declassify more of the report, and Tenet promised to fax over additional material. But, later that evening, Graham received a call from the CIA, informing him that the White House had ordered Tenet not to release anything more.

"That same evening, October 7, 2002, Bush gave a major speech in Cincinnati defending the resolution now before Congress and laying out the case for war. Bush's speech brought together all the misinformation and exaggeration that the White House had been disseminating that fall. "The evidence indicates that Iraq is reconstituting its nuclear weapons program," the president declared. "Iraq has attempted to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes and other equipment needed for gas centrifuges, which are used to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons." Bush also argued that, through its ties to Al Qaeda, Iraq would be able to use biological and chemical weapons against the United States. "Iraq could decide on any given day to provide a biological or chemical weapon to a terrorist group or individual terrorists," he warned. If Iraq had to deliver these weapons on its own, Bush said, Iraq could use the new unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) that it was developing. "We have also discovered through intelligence that Iraq has a growing fleet of manned and unmanned aerial vehicles that could be used to disperse chemical or biological weapons across broad areas," he said. "We are concerned that Iraq is exploring ways of using these UAVs for missions targeting the United States." This claim represented the height of absurdity. Iraq's UAVs had ranges of, at most, 300 miles. They could not make the flight from Baghdad to Tel Aviv, let alone to New York.

"After the speech, when reporters pointed out that Bush's warning of an imminent threat was contradicted by Tenet's statement the same day that there was little likelihood of an Iraqi attack, Tenet dutifully offered a clarification, explaining that there was "no inconsistency" between the president's statement and his own and that he had personally fact-checked the president's speech. He also issued a public statement that read, "There is no question that the likelihood of Saddam using weapons of mass destruction against the United States or our allies ... grows as his arsenal continues to build."

"Five of the nine Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee, including Graham and Durbin, ultimately voted against the resolution, but they were unable to convince other committee members or a majority in the Senate itself. This was at least in part because they were not allowed to divulge what they knew: While Graham and Durbin could complain that the administration's and Tenet's own statements contradicted the classified reports they had read, they could not say what was actually in those reports. "

Considering what information was available, and what was allowed to be available, I think to catagorize Clinton as an "easily-deceived naif" is Monday-morning quarterbacking of the worst kind.

Posted by Ethel-to-Tilly | February 5, 2008 3:03 PM

Matt is right that decisions are made (at least by good politicians) with an eye to the public opinion at the time they matter rather than at the time they are made.

There is one problem with the argument as far as Obama goes. In 2002 he is a little known Senator. It is doubtful that a speech in favor of the war, even if borne out, would make him a national figure. The desire to go from nowhere to the top requires not only being right, but being right against the odds.

To take an extreme example, if I ever want to be president I would have to make my "courageous" speech on something that is at best a 1 in 1000 chance" after all, my opposition to the Iraq war at the outset has not gotten me any attention whatsoever.

So it is a reasonable calculation for someone in Obama's shoes to say, if the Iraq war goes well, even if I support it I am never going to be president. So if I want to be president the smart thing to do is to oppose it. A kind of small scale Pascal's wager.

Not that I think that is Obama's calculation. I tend to think people should have seen what a disaster the invasion was going to be from the outset so I am willing to believe that the people who saw it and diagnosed why correctly believed what they said. But the question of what the consequences of being right are have to go into the calculation along with what is likely to be right. For Clinton, either way she was running for president. But for Obama he needed a big win to have a chance to run for president.

Posted by Lon | February 5, 2008 3:03 PM

For Christ's sake. Everybody is a revisionist.

The AUMF on the surface was an attempt to use a credible threat of military action to force Saddam to admit UN Inspectors. As such, and against all expectations, it worked. Inspectors were admitted, allowed unfettered access, and to almost everyone's surprise were well on their way to proving that Saddam had in fact disarmed. As a first order action the vote for AUMF can not only be defended but indeed commended.

Now you can take this to second order effects about your beliefs that Bush would use the vote to take the country to war come what may (my view at the time) but frankly it is somewhere between duplicitous and despicable for one time war supporters to bash Clinton for a vote that accomplished exactly the limited goals it ostensibly sought. Based on what Congress knew in Sept 2002 and depending on their judgement of the actual Bush agenda the vote for AUMF was not the craven surrender that people now on the anti-war bandwagon want to make it. Because in all honesty everyone needs to ask themselves where they personally were at the time.

The Bush plan was transparently simple. After the invasion he didn't need to prove that Saddam was actually a threat or even had operational chemical and biological weapons, any discovery of dusty warheads in some bunker somewhere would have validated his decision and put everyone who voted against AUMF not in a safe state in a fatally exposed political position for years to come. It is certainly true that it is folly to give a loaded, cocked gun to a drunken fratboy and expect him to use it with discretion. On the other hand trusting the President of the United States not to go to war just for the hell of it at worst was a lack of judgement about Bush himself.

Posted by Bruce Webb | February 5, 2008 3:04 PM

why not consider the possibility that HRC thought it was the right thing to do at the time?

I think that this is indeed a very likely possibility, Neil. Reports from the first Clinton administration indicate that she frequently argued for the more hawkish positions in intra-administration debates. In fact, I suspect Clinton would prefer to be advocating more hard line positions right now, but is held back by the political requirement of catering to a doveish Democratic electorate. I imagine we will see her quickly move to the right if she gets in the general election, and attempt to outflank McCain selectively from the right with whatever is the 2008 equivalent of the "missile gap".

Posted by Dan Kervick | February 5, 2008 3:11 PM

> Considering what information was available, and
> what was allowed to be available, I think to
> catagorize Clinton as an "easily-deceived naif" is
> Monday-morning quarterbacking of the worst kind.

That's funny, because it was pretty clear to me out here in lonely flyover country that (1) Bush's evidence was phony (2) there was no threat from Iraq to a nation with the power and reach of the US (3) that W Bush would make a hash of any war that he launched. And I said so in a letter to my three congressmen at the time. Also see the Atrios quote above: "mobile bioweapons labs"? 81mm tubes? 81mm is that standard diameter for every unguided antipersonnel rocket made since 1935, but _these_ 811mm tubes just HAD to be going to a uranium separation facility?

Riiiiight.

Cranky

I am not letting Graham and Durbin off the hook here:

> While Graham and Durbin could complain that the
> administration's and Tenet's own statements
> contradicted the classified reports they had
> read, they could not say what was actually in
> those reports. "

They /couldn't/? They sure as h**l /could/ - either in open session (risking impeachment) or by demanding a secret session. They chose not to take it that far. The long-term result IMHO is permanent irreparable damage to the United States.

Posted by Cranky Observer | February 5, 2008 3:11 PM

My favorite guys are the ones who are so furious at Clinton because of her Iraq War vote that they swear they're backing McCain ("100 years") against her in the general election. That's what our party needs, more Coulter thinking. Does it occur to anyone that Clinton would be open to criticism as a hypocrite if she had opposed the war resolution, in light of the fact that the Clinton administration's stated position was regime change in Iraq? Just because you vote to let Bush use military force against Hussein doesn't mean you support the invasion and occupation, and if you substitute a semi-rational president like Bush Sr. for the wacko ideologues that we actually have, the authorization actually makes some sense. If you will recall, military intervention in Haiti and the Balkans did not result in catastrophe, because a semi-rational administration was in office. Are you really so sure that what has happened was the only possible outcome of military intervention? But I suppose balance and context are not in vogue these days.

Posted by J DAlessandro | February 5, 2008 3:20 PM

"Nothing changed between 1991 and 2003 in terms of the US being able to impose its will..."

Quite a lot had changed. During those years UN sanctions had done quite a lot of damage to Iraqi society - damage that was ultimately the fault of Saddam but he was able to use that as propaganda against the US.

And having US troops in Saudi Arabia to as protection against Saddam was being used as propaganda against the US by bin Laden.

Keeping Saddam contained did actually have a cost. It's reasonable to ask the question - how long could it go on? Now there's no definitive answer to that. It's reasonable for some people to believe it could continue indefinitely and for others to say that it couldn't.

A lot of this debate forgets that Saddam was an active player in this - he was biding his time till France, Russia and China undermined US and British containment. Maybe those countries would have failed. Maybe they would have succeeded.

Posted by Neil | February 5, 2008 3:20 PM

On the other hand trusting the President of the United States not to go to war just for the hell of it at worst was a lack of judgement about Bush himself.

Bruce, you can't honestly believe that Hillary Clinton believed that there was a realistic chance that Bush would not go to war in Iraq. Could she really be such a simpleton? By the fall of 2002, everyone who could read knew that the Bush administration, and particularly Bush himself, wanted war, that war was coming and that all of the resolutions, UN meetings and diplomacy were just the final steps needed to maintain appearances, follow the expected procedure and dance us into the appropriate diplomatic launch position.

Even before we discovered their were no WMD, and even before Paul Wolfowitz admitted that the WMD thing was just the most politically palatable justificatory rationale to put forward, there was a very involved and very public national discussion about all of the various reasons the administration had for invading Iraq, and how that invasion fit into their global post 9/11 geo-strategy, how Iraq was the first step in a series of actions that would take us into Iran and beyond. I would say that the invasion was causally overdetermined by an abundance of administration motives, almost any one of which individually would have sufficed to get Bush to pull the trigger. And really, there was no real secret about what was happening.

I can't believe any US Senators were in the dark about this. Every single person who voted for the authorization knew that it meant war. It was even widely reported that Democratic political strategists were encouraging Democrats to support the war because it was believed that the war was going to be an easy victory and Democrats had to end up on the right side of it.

Posted by Dan Kervick | February 5, 2008 3:30 PM

> Keeping Saddam contained did actually have a
> cost. It's reasonable to ask the question - how
> long could it go on? Now there's no definitive
> answer to that.

It is also reasonable to hold people who voted in favor of spending 4000 American lives, somewhere between 100,000, and 1,000,000 Iraqi lives, and one trillion dollars accountable for their vote.

You can claim that there was "no definitive answer" if you like, but in fact there was an answer and those who (apparently without reading any of the 15 years of PNAC material signed off by Wolfowitz and Feith) got the _wrong_ answer should be held accountable for that. They don't have to be punished but organizations that _reward_ people who have bad judgment/are unlucky at the expense of people who have good judgment don't do so well in the long run.

> A lot of this debate forgets that Saddam was
> an active player in this - he was biding his
> time till France, Russia and China undermined
> US and British containment.

And then he woudda done... what? Caused some more low-level trouble in the Middle East? Whoo hoo. Invaded Kuwait/Saudi again? You will have to give me some strong evidence of that. Saddam as Dr. Evil directly contracts the "damage by 10 years of sanctions" theory as well.

Cranky

How are women doing in The New Iraq by the way?

Posted by Cranky Observer | February 5, 2008 3:34 PM

Someone in Obama's position didn't face any real political risks in any direction.

Thank you for acknowledging that Obama's speech was not all that courageous. Who the hell really cares what a State Senator in a safe district thinks?

But the only cynical reason to speak out strongly against the war would have been a conviction that such speaking out would look smart in retrospect.

Which is why he did it. Thanks for acknowledging that too.

Posted by John Petty | February 5, 2008 3:39 PM

I believe that only one senator up for re-election in 2002 voted against the war authorization.

Minnesota's Paul Wellstone.

Conventional wisdom at the time was that it would cost him the election - at the time he cast his vote. But he was leading (by a small, but real margin) Norm Coleman at the time that tragedy struck, less than 2 weeks before the general election.

Even those in minnesota who profoundly differed with Wellstone's decision respected the fact that it was *his* decision - based upon his conscience - and not the result of a finger in the wind.

You can still see cars with green bumper stickers here in MN, asking What Would Wellstone Do?

Posted by James Kakalios | February 5, 2008 3:58 PM

"Whatever you may say about Hillary Clinton, pro or con, she obviously didn't take the position she did on Iraq because of short term political calculations..."

I've never heard anybody make the argument that it was a short-term strategy. I believe, and anyone else who attributes an ulterior motive that it was a long-term decision—for THIS White House run.

Posted by Mr Furious | February 5, 2008 3:59 PM

From what I understand, Obama was contemplating a run for the U.S. Senate at the time, so taking his position when he did WAS courageous from a standpoint of personal ambition.
And for the sake of argument, let's agree they both made their decisions for the most cynical reasons possible. All things being equal, Obama was right, Hillary was wrong, in a major way. He has the right to beat her and his GOP opponent over the head with his original position as much as he wants.

Posted by Jane | February 5, 2008 4:00 PM

From what I understand, Obama was contemplating a run for the U.S. Senate at the time, so taking his position when he did WAS courageous from a standpoint of personal ambition.
And for the sake of argument, let's agree they both made their decisions for the most cynical reasons possible. All things being equal, Obama was right, Hillary was wrong, in a major way. He has the right to beat her and his GOP opponent over the head with his original position as much as he wants.

Posted by Jane | February 5, 2008 4:01 PM

why does this debate even continue at all? I wish I had a dollar for every "progressive" I've seen say things this election season like "Obama would have voted for the war if he was in the Senate", offering no evidence what so ever. does anyone even CHECK what Obama himself said at the time? he said he would have voted "no" on the EXACT piece of legislation which passed, that he would have sided with Dick Durbin against the bill because they case had not been made to give Bush the authority to declare war. what else do people need to know to understand this? Clinton could have voted for the Levin bill, and every time she's asked about why she didn't, she LIES. I wish I was making that up, but I'm not, during that debate a few nights ago, she just sat there and lied and lied about it. the idea that this war vote wasn'tabout political expedience for Clinton is mistaken, she most certainly knew she would be running for president one day, and this was her big chance to show off how tough she could be against an innocent, already-devastated country. then she added inslut to injury by approving of our use of cluster bombs and depeleted uranium there, as well. gee, that's all pretty progressive, ain't it? what a freakin joke. the choice between Obama and Clinton is not unlike the choice between Bush and Gore. they are acting somewhat similarly, but the differences are plain to see, if you want to bother to further educate yourself.

Posted by onceler | February 5, 2008 4:31 PM

Weak argument. Hillary was thinking about the politics - hell she was thinking of running in 2004 for Pres and then realized it was too risky. It's not the 2006 election she was interested in... she did not want to be portrayed as a weakling on Nat Security when she ran for President. Understandable. Especially as a woman. But wrong in judgement. And one she will keep making if/when she becomes President cos she follows polls and triangulates. NOT leadership.

Posted by Chris | February 5, 2008 4:36 PM

What Mr Furious said. MY's entire post is meaningless because it's based on a ridiculous strawman.

By MY's logic, anything any Senator does in their first 2 years of a term cannot, by definition, be done for political purposes.

Posted by Tractarian | February 5, 2008 4:38 PM

Regarding Obama's "courage":

While he should be applauded for being correct on the war, being anti-war was also the politically wise choice for an ambitious state senator looking to run as an insurgent candidate for US Senate in a Democratic primary the next election cycle.

Remember, there was an establishment candidate preparing to run that was favored over him; being anti-war would be absolutely in sync with the electorate he would soon be looking to court.

Posted by Andruw | February 5, 2008 4:38 PM

Just for the record, the $1 trillion spent on the Iraq war would have paid for 43,500,000 Priuses (built under license from Toyota in the USA by Ford and GM) or 715,000 megawatts of wind turbine capacity or some combination of the two.

Cranky

For reference the current total installed generating capacity of the US (coal, nuclear, oil, gas, and a bit of wind and hydro) is around 920,000 megawatts.

Posted by Cranky Observer | February 5, 2008 4:42 PM

being anti-war was also the politically wise choice for an ambitious state senator looking to run as an insurgent candidate for US Senate in a Democratic primary the next election cycle.

This was absolutely not conventional wisdom at the time. In fact it still wasn't conventional wisdom when John Murtha started making speeches about getting out of Iraq. The names Saddam and Osama were used interchangeably at the time, voting "No" on the Iraq war was equivalent to being soft on terrorism. Voting "Yes" proved you were strong on national defense. (Still does if you read the newspapers today).

Seriously, did you live in this country in 2002? The anti war position was considered the extreme fringe by the media and the political class. Tom Daschle didn't beg Bush to delay the vote because he thought it would be easy for Democrats to vote no. He knew it would be hard to vote against the AUMF. John Edwards admitted as much in his apology for his vote.

Posted by Jinchi | February 5, 2008 5:10 PM

I think this analysis relies too much on hindsight and ignores some of the essential uncertainty of the time. Even if Clinton felt that invading Iraq wasn't good policy, she probably didn't think it would be the total catastrophe in which we're currently embroiled. She might have thought the best policy was to avoid a needless war. But perhaps, she judged the best politics is to support a needless war that we would likely win. In this, admmittedly speculative, scenario, Clinton made a political judgement that differed from her policy judgement but was wrong enough on both counts that Matt's treating them as identical. While I can't prove this scenario, I think it's quite reasonble to consider it as a possibility.

Posted by Mavis Beacon | February 5, 2008 5:20 PM

As said, let's assume each of the candidates was voting (assume voting to mean doing what they could at the time) as they truly felt was right.

In that case, the contrast between the two could not be more stark. The contrast of how they see the role of the US in today's world could not be more stark. Their understanding of history could be no more stark. Their understanding of the ME region could be no more stark.

The votes, taken only on face value, mean far less than if you look at the votes AND the statements justifying the votes made by each candidate at the time.

HRC voted for the resolution because she felt the President should have the perogative conducting foreign affairs. She says so in her floor speech at the time and has said so since. Her reasoning, however sincere, was limited to what impact it had on our president, our system.

Obama's statement at the time shows a clear understanding of history, the culture of the ME, the impact such a vote would have on the world with little regard to how it would affect our president, our system.

I know which view I want making the decisions in MY White House.

Posted by G Davis | February 5, 2008 6:16 PM

Right, but your argument is in a sense trivial. Hillary may have genuinely felt going into Iraq was the right thing to do, but hindsight has shown us that her judgment was bad. Politicians don't get a pass for bad judgment simply because they really believed they were making the right choice. The fact that she cannot admit that her judgment was bad in this case suggests she continues to have bad judgment and did not learn from her mistake.

Posted by Matt P | February 5, 2008 6:57 PM

James Kakalios said: "I believe that only one senator up for re-election in 2002 voted against the war authorization.

Minnesota's Paul Wellstone."

Which is incorrect. Durbin was also up that year. True, he wasn't likely to lose the race, given the disintegration in the Illinois GOP. But just wanted to clear it up for the record.

Posted by Kerry Reid | February 5, 2008 11:20 PM

Kerry:

I stand corrected. Thank you.

Cheers,

Jim

Posted by James Kakalios | February 6, 2008 7:58 AM

Great post. It's pure yellow journalism to push the silly notion that Hillary, or any of the other people voting for the AUF in 2002, did so for any other reason than that given what they knew at the time, it was the right thing to do.

Whether or not this "judgement was bad" only time will tell. Personally, I'd a lot rather be where we are today than confronting a resurgent Saddam Hussein, triumphant over the UN, fueled by the multi-billion dollar Total/Fina/Elf deal signed in 2002, in a nuclear arms race with Iran and Saudi Arabia (at least), and competing with Al Qaeda to be our Biggest Headache.

Posted by robert powell | February 7, 2008 7:07 AM