The Meta Problem

Uh oh. Here's a frightening post from Kevin Drum in which he suggests that both Barack Obama and HIllary Clinton spent the national security session of the debate unduly fixated on the "meta" issue of who could best make arguments about national security without either of them actually making an argument. There does seem to be some truth to that. Here's Barack Obama, for example:

The question is: Can we make an argument that this was a conceptually flawed mission, from the start?

And we need better judgment when we decide to send our young men and women into war, that we are making absolutely certain that it is because there is an imminent threat, that American interests are going to be protected, that we have a plan to succeed and to exit, that we are going to train our troops properly and equip them properly and put them on proper rotations and treat them properly when they come home.

And that is an argument that I think we are going to have an easer time making if they can't turn around and say: But hold on a second; you supported this.

And that's part of the reason why I think that I would be the strongest nominee on this argument of national security.

Now I agree with what Obama is saying here. I think it's important to make the argument that this was conceptually flawed from the start, and I do think Obama's better-positioned to make that argument. But he's not actually making the argument here. He's talking about the possibility of making the argument. He's got an advantage in pressing this argument against Clinton because Clinton, in this context, doesn't want to really portray herself as a war supporter so given the inherently awkward position she's in, any extended discussion of this issue winds up cutting in Obama's favor. But McCain is really going to stand there and say that he said at the time we needed to send more troops to Iraq, that the problems were caused by George W. Bush's unwillingness to listen to him, and that once more troops were sent the situation got better. Obama's going to need to defend the proposition that McCain's wrong about all this.

I took a stab at making the argument a while back with Sam Rosenfeld. For now, I think what Obama's saying is serving is present purposes fairly well. But in the future, something deeper and more first-order is going to have to come into play from either candidate.

Comments

As much as I like actual arguments, Obama as a rhetorical actor (or chess player) doesn't need to make this argument yet, just hint at it.

We will make the arguments here in these style forums, and the ones that win will be the ones that considered for Obama style along with those that survive whatever stress testing they do in person.

Posted by Jimm | February 1, 2008 4:41 PM

Obama is trying to win a primary now, not the general election. There were versions of the case against McCain made by Obama in the NH debate, but that's not really what it is about now. I wouldn't worry about this yet - though I do think that Clinton's "me too" positioning on the war would be a liability in the general election.

Posted by ikl | February 1, 2008 4:45 PM

I think that in front of last night's audience, the argument itself didn't need to be made - it's a given. I have no doubt about Obama's ability and inclination to make the argument to anyone who needs to hear it. He knows he's going to have to make it when he's next to McCain.

Posted by Phoebe | February 1, 2008 4:46 PM

ditto. it's not that kevin isn't right, it's just that primaries are inherently meta because they're elections for elections - elections to see who gets to be in the real elections. and the democrats probably already know both sets of arguments that obama and clinton would make; the argument they need to have is over which argument is better in the real elections. which is, yeah, kinda meta. our post-modern politics at work.

Posted by Max B. | February 1, 2008 4:50 PM

I agree with all the other commenters. This is definitely not an "uh oh" moment.

Obama strikes me as a pretty cagey politician. I suspect he'll know exactly what line of attack to take against McCain.

Posted by santamonicamr | February 1, 2008 4:55 PM

How "deep" or "first order" do you expect Clinton's or Obama's critique to be? I've never seen any evidence that either of them wants to even contemplate a critique of American militarism or imperialism. There's a whole lot of room within Obama's assertion that he doesn't oppose "all wars, just stupid wars."

Obama's website blurb on "building the 21st century military" actually says that we need a bigger military than we have now, including adding 65,000 soldiers and 27,000 marines.

Clinton is less specific on her website, but repeats all the usual, cold-war consensus talking-points about America leading the world.

The Dems are part of the nearly universal, bi-partisan consensus on maintaining American hegemony throughout the world. Maybe they're not delivering major critiques because the only problem they have with the status quo is execution, not goals.

Posted by Pesto | February 1, 2008 4:57 PM

mccain thinks (and so does hillary) that the problem with the war was how it was executed. Obama thinks (as many americans do) that the problem was that there was a WAR in the first place. Obama alone is able to make the argument against McCain, because McCain doesn't see how awful the IDEA of the Iraq war was.

Obama does and he can articulate, andhe has articulated it, he just didn't do it last night.

Posted by freaktown | February 1, 2008 4:58 PM

I agree that a first-order argument is necessary for precisely the reason that Obama hints at - if we don't understand and criticize the mindset that got us into this mess, we're going to do it again. Your link with Sam discusses a lot of this, including the limits of poor planning, woefully naive understanding of local conditions, and the limits of armed intervention (which is about killing and destruction) as a creative force in stimulating democracy and civil society. What you don't really discuss is the moral dimension - is it right and just, if our safety isn't really at stake (which it wasn't), to unleash wide-scale death, destruction, and suffering on people who haven't threatened us? I think we need to have that moral debate because your link is really about us, what we can do, what our limits are, etc. I grant you all the well-made arguments that you and Sam make, but what about a decent respect for the lives and futures of the people of Iraq and other countries whose societies we might want to "reform" in the future? What about saying that non-Americans have a right not to be constantly worried about death suddenly raining down on them from the sky in the event we lose our heads and our nerve? The moral argument has a practical dimension too, because the world won't want to cooperate in furthering our goals if it sees us as dangerously trigger-happy and unpredictably murderous. More than not wanting to, it will be angry enough (as it's becoming) to see it as a point of pride to oppose us. A little of this might be nice to discuss this year, don't you think, before we plunge into the next disaster?

Posted by scott | February 1, 2008 4:58 PM

Kevin is also assuming that the general populace questions that this was a good decision...they don't...overwhelmingly the public says this was a *dumb war*.

He also assumes Iraq HAS gotten better with the surge. Has it? Most understand that our troops are better than anyone else's in controlling situations, but that's an incredibly narrow definition of *better*.

Obama has everything on his side in any argument about Iraq. The rest will be peddling in one direction or the other to justify some version or another of the issue.

In short, Drum is shortsighted and reaching.

Posted by G Davis | February 1, 2008 5:01 PM

Hmm, I don't think Obama's point was meant to speak to the issue of whether this was a flawed mission, since strong majorities of Democrats already agree. His point went to the credibility of the Democratic nominee in making that argument in November.

Arguing that it was flawed is one thing, but it only allows Hillary to filibuster with agreement and an obfuscation of their differences by noting they're both for withdrawal. By framing his answer the way he did, Obama hit on not just the judgment issue, but also the electability one.

Posted by Aaron Benson | February 1, 2008 5:11 PM

Yeah. Wicked dumb post by Kevin.

At this point, Obama doesn't need to argue vociferously that the war as dumb. He's already made that point, we all know he feels that way about it, and neither McCain nor Romney are in the room yet, so why should he get too deep into the meta argument? What's relevant right now is that he really is better suited than Hillary to make that argument come autumn. McCain or Romney will certainly let fly with all the predictable shit (Ex. "Aren't we better off with Saddam dead?") but I'm not worried about Obama's ability to deal with specious arguments and false choices, and clearly he is not a pacifist. Hillary, on the other hand, can't say that the war was a terrible move, and therefore her criticisms would be limited to the dipshit minutiae that McCain and Romney were bickering about the other night.

Posted by tinisoli | February 1, 2008 5:14 PM

Um, Drum should take note. Obama already made that argument in 2002:

I don’t oppose all wars. And I know that in this crowd today, there is no shortage of patriots, or of patriotism. What I am opposed to is a dumb war. What I am opposed to is a rash war. What I am opposed to is the cynical attempt by Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz and other arm-chair, weekend warriors in this Administration to shove their own ideological agendas down our throats, irrespective of the costs in lives lost and in hardships borne.

What I am opposed to is the attempt by political hacks like Karl Rove to distract us from a rise in the uninsured, a rise in the poverty rate, a drop in the median income – to distract us from corporate scandals and a stock market that has just gone through the worst month since the Great Depression.

That’s what I’m opposed to. A dumb war. A rash war. A war based not on reason but on passion, not on principle but on politics.

Now let me be clear – I suffer no illusions about Saddam Hussein. He is a brutal man. A ruthless man. A man who butchers his own people to secure his own power. He has repeatedly defied UN resolutions, thwarted UN inspection teams, developed chemical and biological weapons, and coveted nuclear capacity.

He’s a bad guy. The world, and the Iraqi people, would be better off without him.

But I also know that Saddam poses no imminent and direct threat to the United States, or to his neighbors, that the Iraqi economy is in shambles, that the Iraqi military a fraction of its former strength, and that in concert with the international community he can be contained until, in the way of all petty dictators, he falls away into the dustbin of history.

I know that even a successful war against Iraq will require a US occupation of undetermined length, at undetermined cost, with undetermined consequences. I know that an invasion of Iraq without a clear rationale and without strong international support will only fan the flames of the Middle East, and encourage the worst, rather than best, impulses of the Arab world, and strengthen the recruitment arm of al-Qaeda.

I am not opposed to all wars. I’m opposed to dumb wars.

Nothing meta about that. If these exact frames are the ones he uses in the general, there's no way McCain can win that argument.

Posted by Abe | February 1, 2008 5:29 PM

Whoops. I wanted to highlight this part:

But I also know that Saddam poses no imminent and direct threat to the United States, or to his neighbors, that the Iraqi economy is in shambles, that the Iraqi military a fraction of its former strength, and that in concert with the international community he can be contained until, in the way of all petty dictators, he falls away into the dustbin of history.

I know that even a successful war against Iraq will require a US occupation of undetermined length, at undetermined cost, with undetermined consequences. I know that an invasion of Iraq without a clear rationale and without strong international support will only fan the flames of the Middle East, and encourage the worst, rather than best, impulses of the Arab world, and strengthen the recruitment arm of al-Qaeda.

What could McCain possibly say to counter that?

Posted by Abe | February 1, 2008 5:32 PM

Obama needed to get slightly meta last night because, as Max B points out, primaries are inherently meta.

So, if Obama goes first-order and says "I opposed this war from the get-go because it was dumb", and Hillary says "I oppose the war because it was poorly executed" - then the listener isn't fully informed as to why this distinction is tactically and strategically important.

Obama, being the exceptional communicator that he is, told us why. And he's right.

Posted by Brautigan | February 1, 2008 5:46 PM

Obama, being the exceptional communicator that he is, told us why.

Yeah, he claims it shows that he has better judgment. But at the time, Americans who thought going to war was the right choice outnumbered those who thought it was the wrong choice by more than three to one. Even many Democrats who now oppose the war may continue to believe, like Hillary, that they were right to favor it at the time the decision was made and that it's only because Bush bungled the subsequent execution of the war that things have since gone so badly. In that light, they may be more likely to attribute Obama's long-standing opposition to a lucky guess that turned out to be correct in hindsight rather than a sign of truly superior judgment.

Posted by Mixner | February 1, 2008 6:10 PM

True dat, Mixner, and I think that's exactly why Hillary has taken the rhetorical position she has (IIRCC, Matt pointed this out awhile back) - it lets the 70% of the Americans who supported this fiasco at one time off the hook. "Oh, I was bamboozled by Bush, I'm not an evil neo-con warmonger."

But here's the beauty of the meta-argument - it sidesteps that altogether, and allows the 70%ers to embrace Obama's position out of pragmatism, without challenging their moral core. Doesn't matter why he was right, but the fact that he was allows him to challenge the GOP candidate from a stronger position.

Or maybe I'm overthinking it.

Posted by Brautigan | February 1, 2008 6:20 PM

By that standard, Mixner, when does any human being ever deserve credit for having been prescient? Never? What's a guy gotta do to get credit for being right? Would his words have carried more weight if he'd had them published in some journal or in a Times op-ed?

Part of the reason that Obama deserves props for his prescience is precisely what you cite as a reason to be skeptical: that so many of us were either dumb or duped by the president, but he was not. If 90% of us had been opposed, then Obama's stance wouldn't be anomalous or special. The fact that both the government AND the general public used poor judgment is all the more reason to respect his judgment.

Posted by tinisoli | February 1, 2008 6:22 PM

Matt,

You are exactly right about this, and Barack needs to keep pounding this point now. Electability persuades primary voters, and if only he would remind people of it, Obama could neutralize McCain by arguing that the war was bad from the start. Hillary can't make this argument, so she would have a much weaker position against the Arizona senator in the general election.

Next to McCain, Obama would look fresh and lucid, and he would represent a wiser, more moderate America. Next to Obama, McCain would look like an old man, stuck in the very habits of thinking that have contributed to the decline of America.

Posted by John M. | February 1, 2008 7:50 PM

Here's Obama speaking at a press conference this morning (via Swampland. Plenty of non-meta war opposition here:

"...I don’t think it’s adequate for us to go into that argument suggesting somehow the difference is somehow in execution. I think the problem with the war in Iraq was with its conception. And if we go in there saying, ‘Well, it just was not managed well by George Bush,’ then Senator McCain, I think, will be able then to come back and argue, ‘Well, we reduced violence in the surge’ and we’re now getting it right in his framework. And I totally dispute that but I think it’s easier for me to dispute given my long-standing belief that it was a strategic error on the part of the Bush administration.”

Posted by B.C. | February 1, 2008 9:21 PM

Here's Obama speaking at a press conference this morning (via Swampland. Plenty of non-meta war opposition here:

"...I don’t think it’s adequate for us to go into that argument suggesting somehow the difference is somehow in execution. I think the problem with the war in Iraq was with its conception. And if we go in there saying, ‘Well, it just was not managed well by George Bush,’ then Senator McCain, I think, will be able then to come back and argue, ‘Well, we reduced violence in the surge’ and we’re now getting it right in his framework. And I totally dispute that but I think it’s easier for me to dispute given my long-standing belief that it was a strategic error on the part of the Bush administration.”

Posted by B.C. | February 1, 2008 9:21 PM

Here's Obama speaking at a press conference this morning (via Swampland. Plenty of non-meta war opposition here:

"...I don’t think it’s adequate for us to go into that argument suggesting somehow the difference is somehow in execution. I think the problem with the war in Iraq was with its conception. And if we go in there saying, ‘Well, it just was not managed well by George Bush,’ then Senator McCain, I think, will be able then to come back and argue, ‘Well, we reduced violence in the surge’ and we’re now getting it right in his framework. And I totally dispute that but I think it’s easier for me to dispute given my long-standing belief that it was a strategic error on the part of the Bush administration.”

Posted by B.C. | February 1, 2008 9:22 PM

Although many have correctly noted that making the case that the Iraq war was a dumb idea and idiotically executed is not really necessary in a Dem primary, Obama did made the non-meta and valid point that Iraq was a distraction from more important security threats in Afghanistan and Pakistan, thereby making us less safe.

I like Kevin Drum and all. This just wasn't one of his smarter posts.

Posted by Jeff S. | February 1, 2008 10:04 PM

By that standard, Mixner, when does any human being ever deserve credit for having been prescient?

When he can show that he really was prescient rather than just lucky. The risk in Obama's "bad judgment" attack on Hillary is that it's an implicit rebuke to Democrats who believed going to war was the right thing to do at the time. Maybe they'll swallow his argument and accept that they were wrong and that Obama has better judgment than they do. Or maybe they'll decide that no one was really in a good position to predict how things would turn out, and that Obama just got lucky.

And of course, if the situation in Iraq continues to improve, and more people come to believe that some kind of positive outcome might eventually come from the war, his claim of superior judgment gets weaker and weaker.

Posted by Mixner | February 1, 2008 10:26 PM

Obama was making the very important point that we can rely on him not to get us into another unnecessary war, as with Iran, for instance, whereas Hillary, having voted for both Lieberman-Warner in 2002 and Lieberman-Kyl in 2006, is untrustworthy and, yes, naive. Bush may yet strike Iran, claiming its military is terrorist as stated in Lieberman-Kyl. Obama wasn't "lucky," he was informed and wise, as were many others, such as Ted Kennedy.

Posted by Tamsin Crozier | February 1, 2008 10:53 PM

I'm not at all worried about Obama having this argument with John McCain. All he has to do is say, "John McCain said he wants to be in Iraq for 100 years. Do you want to be there for 100 years?" How the hell can McCain possibly win that argument?

Game over.

Posted by Moonlight | February 1, 2008 10:54 PM

Obama was making the very important point that we can rely on him not to get us into another unnecessary war

We most certainly cannot rely on him not to do that, or even to agree with us on whether a war is "necessary."

All he has to do is say, "John McCain said he wants to be in Iraq for 100 years. Do you want to be there for 100 years?" How the hell can McCain possibly win that argument?

By pointing out it's a lie, perhaps? McCain didn't say that he "wants" to be in Iraq for 100 years. He said he doesn't think there would necessarily be anything wrong with maintaining a military presence in Iraq for an indefinite period, as long as Americans weren't getting killed. He pointed out that we have had a military presence in Japan for over 60 years and in South Korea for around 40 years, and there doesn't seem to be much opposition among the American people to those policies.

Posted by Mixner | February 1, 2008 11:19 PM

"Obama did made the non-meta and valid point that Iraq was a distraction from more important security threats in Afghanistan and Pakistan, thereby making us less safe."

"Obama was making the very important point that we can rely on him not to get us into another unnecessary war, as with Iran, for instance"

As I've been saying repeatedly here, everyone is naive if they think Obama will not get us into a war with Iran OR Pakistan.

Get it through your heads! He DOES NOT understand either the Iran position OR the Pakistan position. His foreign policy concepts are CRAP! He doesn't understand that no matter HOW MUCH you use "diplomacy", if your basic knowledge of what is going on in Iran and Pakistan, and what the US can or cannot do about it, is WRONG, the diplomacy will not help you.

Obama has not said ONE THING about Iran or Pakistan that indicates he knows the score about the situation in either country.

Hillary is equally bad or worse about this, of course. But Obama is NOT going to keep the US out of a war with Iran OR Pakistan unless he gets a clue from someone before or after being made President.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | February 1, 2008 11:25 PM

Q: President Bush has talked about our staying in Iraq for 50 years — (cut off by McCain)

McCAIN: Make it a hundred.

Posted by Moonlight | February 1, 2008 11:34 PM

Moonlight,

Nice out-of-context truncation. Here's the rest of the quote:

McCain: ... we've been in Japan for 60 years. We’ve been in South Korea 50 years or so. That would be fine with me. As long as Americans are not being injured or harmed or wounded or killed. That’s fine with me, I hope that would be fine with you, if we maintain a presence in a very volatile part of the world where Al Queada is training and equipping and recruiting and motivating people every single day.

If the American people don't object to having a military presence in Japan for 60 years and South Korea for 50 years, I'm not sure why you think they would necessarily object to having a military presence in Iraq for decades, either.

Posted by Mixner | February 2, 2008 12:46 AM

What is utterly STUPID about the quote, Mixner, is the notion that the Iraqis, after the US has been responsible for a million of them dying and another four million being displaced, are going to allow ANY Americans to walk around their country without getting killed for the next one or two GENERATIONS!

McCain is so totally fucking OUT OF IT with his bullshit about Baghdad being utterly safe and the rest of his ketamine-induced hallucinations that it's amazing to me that they aren't considering him for involuntary commitment to an institution rather than nominating him for President.

And anybody who believes that shit is as fucking deluded as McCain.

Go back to trolling for torture, Mixner.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | February 2, 2008 2:17 AM

Mixner is absolutely right, and moreover doesn't expect readers to swallow fantastic, not to mention obnoxious, assertions with nothing to back them up but the fact that the poster can type.

Obama is playing this just about right. The country is full of voters who don't have a clue about the actual Iraqi history people like Clinton and McCain were dealing with in positions of great responsibility for over a decade. They can skim a few websites, buy the network news party line, and imagine that if we had just continued to kick the can down the road everything would be hunky dory. I suspect Barak himself knows better. People who have been paying close attention to Iraq for more than the last couple of election cycles certainly do.

Posted by Robert Powell | February 2, 2008 11:50 AM

"moreover doesn't expect readers to swallow fantastic, not to mention obnoxious, assertions with nothing to back them up but the fact that the poster can type."

Like your bullshit assertions, Powell?

Your crap has been crushed here repeatedly by just about everybody. Yet here you are, typing away.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | February 2, 2008 10:14 PM

You must be joking. No one has provided anything remotely like refutation for any of the facts I've cited. You have lamely put up some links to fringe websites and bits of media gossip, but as far as I can see remain totally ignorant of actual source documents like the UN Charter, specific Resolutions from Congress, Parliament, and the Security Council, Lord Goldsmith's finding (as opposed to selected clips from a purloined, in-house memo described by its author as "speculation on all possible objections"), or any of the various blue-ribbon commission reports like Duelfer or Hutton.

When someone points out a factual error, I'll acknowledge it and retract the statement in question. So far it hasn't happened, and even you should recognize the difference between actual refutation and childish insults. You are rude and obnoxious because you don't have the goods. Being a boor is no substitute for being correct.

Posted by Robert Powell | February 2, 2008 11:25 PM