Mad as Hell

"Hillary Clinton and Richard Holbrooke and Joe Biden weren't backing this policy in a fit of personal pique"

Funny. My recollection was that Hillary Clinton and Richard Holbrooke and Joe Biden were backing a policy of threatening force to get UN weapons inspectors back into Iraq, not the policy of invading Iraq for the sake of invading Iraq followed by the administration.

[T]he reality is that the Iraq War was pushed by a circle of political, policy, and media elites considerably wider than the Bush family and endorsed by an even larger family.

Yes, but it took a special kind of psychopathic idiot to pull the trigger. We can stipulate that the American foreign policy establishment is hawkish without agreeing that just any ole president would've gone in heavy and stupid the way we did.

This does not make sense. Do you think the GWB would not have gone to Iraq if Biden and Holbrooke and Clinton had not supported him? The obvious answer suggests that their support is no more than a footnote in this sordid affair.

Also, somewhat off-topic, but I just read your Guardian piece, and I'll comment about this:

"Nobody's interests - not America's nor Britain's nor Iran's nor Iraq's nor Israel's nor Syria's - are served by the current atmosphere of tension"

I think this is emblematic of your general fuzziness on foreign policy thinking. The fallacy here is much like David Broder's standard fallacy on domestic politics, where he'll speculate that polarizing phenomena "benefit neither party".

But, of course, things which are bad for the whole are often good for a part. And while war and international tension are almost always bad for the whole of humanity, they can often be good for one country or another.

In this case, I think the current atmosphere of tension serves Iran's interests quite nicely, which is why they grabbed the British soldiers in the first place.

People like Clinton and Biden were enablers, which is bad enough, but that's still a far cry from planning and executing the war.

I take Matt's point as blaming the whole mess on Bush's personal bullheadedness and daddy issues rather too neatly absolves the DC establishment (Senators of both parties, the mainstream media, leading opinion journals, the foreign policy elite, pundits and columnists of all stripes, the WaPo and NYT editorial pages, and last but not least, Joe Klein himself) of their culpability in this nightmarish catastrophe. Putting all the onus on Bush while everyone else walks away whistling is just another version of the dread Incompetence Dodge ("Our brilliant policy would have worked, except for Bush messing it up.") I'm sure you can see why so many establishment opinion leaders are gravitating towards the "it's all Bush's fault," but for the sake of the future of US policy and world leadership and accounting for the astonishing moral vacuum at the heart of the situation, we can't let them get away with it.

We need to learn more from this debacle than just "don't put George Bush in charge of foreign policy again."

I'm not a fan of Senator Clinton's foreign policy and would support most criticisms of it, but you're being intellectually dishonest if you try to group President Bush's foreign policy with hers.

Senator Clinton can still be wrong without having the same opinion as the administration.

who cares about Joe Klein? Who cares about Andrew Sullivan? Who cares about Tom Friedman? wastes of time, wastes of effort, wastes of laughter. pheh!

petey: "while war and international tension are almost always bad for the whole of humanity, they can often be good for one country or another"

Or, one faction within one country.

The Iraq War has been very good for Halliburton and Exxon/Mobil, and pretty good for the Saudis and the Carlyle Group.

No, Matt's right.

1. George Bush without significant political support becomes just another ineffectual middle aged man. See, e.g, now.

2. If Bush's plan had worked out slightly better i.e. they had gotten a sufficiently competent and sufficiently ruthless strongman (a la Mubarak or Musharaf) to take over the reins in Iraq, the whole country, including the DLC establishment in its entirety, would be falling over themselves to lick his boots. See "Mission Accomplished" behavior.

3. What Matt's trying to get at is that the DLC, Democrats, Republicans, and in fact the country as a whole, are pissed off at GWB because *he fucked up their dandy neo-imperial dreams*, not because they think such endeavors weren't worthwhile to begin with. Neocons and neoimperialists have fallen out of favor because their ideologies are seen as *unworkable*, not undesirable. Kicking brown foreign butt is still a favorite American pastime, but it's only fun if we win.

Anybody else read Michael Lind's new book?

"What Matt's trying to get at..."

The problem is that Matt has been cutting all kinds of intellectual corners in his zeal to get to his destination on this topic, and it ends up leaving him in all kinds of faith based dead ends.

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"I'm not a fan of Senator Clinton's foreign policy and would support most criticisms of it, but you're being intellectually dishonest if you try to group President Bush's foreign policy with hers."

Yup.

I'll note that Matthew has been pounding some version of this for quite a while now, and it always infuriates me to be put in the position of defending Hillary, since she's running for President and I think she'd be an absolute disaster six ways to Tuesday as the nominee.

But thinking that Hillary and the other Dems that Matt named "endorsed" the Iraq war and were "backing" the Bush policy is such a bizarrely odd reading of the events in the runup to the war that it does leave one questioning his moorings here.

I'll take a stab at defending Matt.

Despite the current fashionability of the distinction in democratic campaigns, it's relatively unimportant whether any particular person endorsed "force" or merely "the threat of force." In 2002-2003, it was fairly clear that force, if authorized, would be used unless Saddam made an abject and humiliating surrender.

Bipartisan legislation, passed in 1998 and signed by Bill Clinton, had made regime change in Iraq the official policy of the United States.

The war enjoyed a 73% favorable rating in many polls. Though now disproven, there was then a wide-spread belief that a) Iraq had a serious and active nuclear program, and b) maintained strategic ties to terrorist groups.

Opinion leaders across a fairly wide swath of the political spectrum were offering their support in various flavors: from "we should go in, but not for six months" to "everyone wants to go to baghdad, but real men want to go to tehran."

It was, in short, an entirely different political environment from the one we currently experience. And that environment did not arise because of George W. Bush's personal pique at Saddam Hussein's attempt to kill his father. Of course, as was said above, the president is ultimately the guy who pulls the trigger and always bears the lion's share of responsibility. But other politicians made that decision possible. And you can bet that, if the war had gone differently, they would not be trying to heap all the credit on George W. Bush alone.

Given what we know about the Bush White House, it's a forgone conclusion that the decision to go to war was made on the basis of political and personal factors-- in particular, policy, i.e., what experts or what the DC great and good thought, was not a factor. Klein just puts two and two together on the personal side and decides he doesn't like what he sees. Me neither.

But what about the political calculation? I've generally thought that Rove went back to his McKinley-esque phony history and assumed that Iraq would be like the Spanish-American war (as the mythology has it)-- run up the hill, plant the flag, run down the hill, go home. But that's not what actually happened, not in Cuba, and not in Iraq.

There was an interesting section in the recent bloggingheads episode between Mark Schmitt and Rosa Brooks, where Mark says that his daughter is constantly being taught about Rosa Parks, but just as a heroic individual, rather than as part of a social movement.

http://bloggingheads.tv/video.php?id=234&cid=1236&in=09:29

It's the same with the US invasion of Iraq. There have been much broader movements in US society over the last 50 years towards colonising the arab and islamic worlds, and cultivating hatred and distain towards arabs, justifying their subjection and ethnic cleansing, and a much more specific social movement against Saddam Hussein's Iraq and against Iran over the last decade or two. And Democrats are fully embedded in those movements.

I'm with James in his assessment of the political situation before the war. I think that almost all Democratic support for the war, before the war, was the result of a process of manipulation, which goes back as far as the regime change legislation in the late Clinton administration. The neo-cons who wanted the war presented other actors who were concerned about Iraq with a choice: either join us in making a bluff by threatening force against Iraq, or let us tag you as friends of Saddam. You see the same thing going on now with the question of whether military action against Iran is "on the table" or "off the table." HClinton, Kerry, Edwards all took door number 1.
If one had serious Presidential ambitions, to take the risk of being labelled 'soft on Saddam' would have required a confidence that broad public opinion would eventually see through the demogoguery. Since by a certain point it was pretty clear that the administration (which controlled the Congress as well) was going to take us to war no matter what Democratic Senators thought, why walk into an obvious political trap?

Petey, it's pretty simple: if you don't want war, don't authorize the use of force.

BP -

"If Bush's plan had worked out slightly better i.e. they had gotten a sufficiently competent and sufficiently ruthless strongman (a la Mubarak or Musharaf) to take over the reins in Iraq,"

But that was never the plan. In fact, the entire thing became a debacle because they DIDN'T PLAN FOR REBUILDING THE COUNTRY. It may have been a debacle anyway, but the lack of a post-invasion plan for getting people working and making the country livable again pretty much gave the various insurgencies the ultimate recruiting tool for getting folks on their side.

Back on point, I can see what Matt is saying here. Bush cannot take all of the blame for the mess - in this country the blame falls on both the executive branch and the legislative branch. Every Senator who voted for war shares the burden with Bush - perhaps not equally (Senators were misled, they thought he was only going to use it as a threat, etc.), but they still share culpability for this disastrous error.

"Petey, it's pretty simple: if you don't want war, don't authorize the use of force."

Everything is pretty simple if you want to conflate separate issues.

Folks who wanted the weapons inspectors put back by using the threat of force aren't the same as folks who wanted regime change and were using the inspectors only as theater. It seems absurd to say that they were 'endorsing' the regime change policy.

And FWIW, I don't think Matthew was talking about the war resolution vote, (though I could be wrong about that).

a circle of political, policy, and media elites considerably wider than the Bush family and endorsed by an even larger family.

Fair is fair. As I recall, the Bush family--at least the former President and his cronies--was against the war. You can't really class them with your HRCs and your Bidens.

Maybe I'm not understanding what you're saying. You write, "Fred Hiatt and Hillary Clinton and Richard Holbrooke and Joe Biden weren't backing this policy in a fit of personal pique, it's of a piece with a certain view -- a mistaken one -- about how America ought to conduct itself in the world." I disagree here. You are creating two overly broad groups. You make the assumption that everyone who did not vote for the war shares the same foreign policy outlook and that everyone who did vote for the war shares the same foreign policy outlook.

President Bush may have voted for the war because of a combination of neoconservative "democracy spreading" views, a fear of overly exaggerated threats, and a policy to secure America's energy resources. Hillary Clinton may have voted for the war on--what turned out to be false--national security grounds. She does not have a neoconservative bent. She may have a liberal interventionist streak in her, but again, that is not neoconservatism.

You are conflating different strains of thought into "pro-war" and "anti-war" views. This analysis does not give insight into a person's foreign policy view. If your post meant to say that President Bush and Senator Clinton were both "pro-war" then, yes, that's true. If your post meant to say that they operate within the same framework when looking at the world, that is unlikely.

Hillary Clinton may have voted for the war on--what turned out to be false--national security grounds.

Nobody believes that. Nobody believes that you could reasonably look at the threat posed by Iraq and believe there were national security grounds that justified preventative war. That's her real problem: her vote is unjustifiable.

She does not have a neoconservative bent.

Prove it.

It doesn't matter what they wanted, the only thing that matters is what they voted for:

"The President is authorized to use the Armed Forces of the United States as he determines to be necessary and appropriate in order to 1.) defend the national security of the United States against the continuing threat posed by Iraq (...)"

I think it's useful to wonder about differences between the reasons people had to launch the attack on Iraq and the subsequent reasons for continuing to fight there. I think there were a whole range of reasons. Bush, I believe, launched the war simply to create a crisis in which he'd have increased leverage and power. Other people, like neo-cons, may have had philosophic reasons for acting. Or acted to cater to Israeli defense needs. Or to stabilize world oil markets. Or to make out like bandits at the feeding trough of increased defense spending. A couple thousand people maybe thought they were acting to help a wretched nation of Iraqis.

I think Bush believed originally that it would be a breeze and a help for him personally. And later, as it became a drag on his power and reputation, his vanity kicked in. There's currently no adjective available to describe how vacant the man is. Or for his avid supporters.

"If your post meant to say that President Bush and Senator Clinton were both "pro-war" then, yes, that's true."

I don't think even that is true, if we're basing things on the war resolution vote.

The war resolution was presented by the administration as a vote for getting the weapons inspectors back into Iraq using the threat of force. They made a number of very clear assertions, both public and private, that it wasn't a vote for regime change.

That's why it got 77 votes in the Senate. If it had been a regime change vote, I think it would have gotten very, very few Democratic votes. And there may have been Republican defectors as well.

My favorite poster child in these discussions is always Tom Dascle, who voted in favor of the resolution, but then on the eve of the actual invasion, spoke out about the fact that the administration had lied about their intentions, and spoke against the coming war - a fact that played a large part in his subsequent election defeat. Was Daschle pro-war or anti-war?

But, as I mentioned before, my suspicion is that Matthew isn't even referring to the war resolution vote, but instead is incorrectly reading various boilerplate speech texts of various Democratic figures to say they were backers of the administration's policy in Iraq when that really isn't the case.

My take is that there is a difference before and after the bombs.

Pre war, assuming minimal competence in POTUS, the proper response was a credible threat of force. The Republicans orchestrated the vote to be as polarizing and as partisan as possible, an act of bad faith that colors the whole war, but they were good at calculating just how onerous an authorization could be, but also be better than not signing on.

Post invasion, the above mentioned Democrats made political calculations based on their pretty bad expectations of how things would play out (although not if we only looking in the short term, and that staying alive in the immediate term was a requirement). This judgement is damning enough on multiple levels, but it is NOT anything like Bush's conduct.

Bush, on the other hand, surrounded himself with a variety of people that wanted war with Iraq for a variety of reasons. Those people, intimately aware of Bush's capabilities most likely appealed to Bush's personal motivations (Saddam tried to Kill his Dad, and he could 'fix' the '92 election loss that followed Bush 41's enormous Gulf War popularity -- I think this period, Bush I at 90% approval followed by his subsequent loss to relative unknown Clinton was crucial in Bush's political education). Think of the Suskind book where advisors knew all they had to do to win an argument was to call their idea a "game changer", and you realize how incredibly small Bush is, and how people with a variety of reasons for wanting war with Iraq would pitch that to GWBush.

Biden and HRC, imo, share a belief in traditional American internationalism, perhaps a mistaken idea -- but it is so different from anything that could be called Bushian, that the above comparison muddles rather than clarifies.

My favorite poster child in these discussions is always Tom Dascle, who voted in favor of the resolution, but then on the eve of the actual invasion, spoke out about the fact that the administration had lied about their intentions, and spoke against the coming war - a fact that played a large part in his subsequent election defeat.

If you have links to HRC's anti-war speech on the eve of the invasion, provide them.

"If Bush's plan had worked out slightly better i.e. they had gotten a sufficiently competent and sufficiently ruthless strongman (a la Mubarak or Musharaf) to take over the reins in Iraq,"

A Mubarak wouldn't be Bush's plan working out slightly better. It would be a totally different outcome than the Bush Administration had anticipated--much like the current outcome, which the Bush administration did not anticipate. And like the current situation, it would represent a failure of American policy, but a totally DIFFERENT failure. Likely with a lower body count, and a totally different (and not necessarily better) long-term geopolitical significance.

Bush went in with no plan beyond a vague hope to have a pro-American liberal democracy magically spring from the ruins of a murderous dictatorship in a nation that had no prior history of liberal democracy and few of the traditions or institutions necessary to support it, as well as a not pro-Western recent and long-term history.

It's ludicrous to suggest that a strongman would have been Bush's plan working out better. First of all, it's not much better. Second, Bush didn't HAVE a plan, so this would just have been a different outcome that Bush hadn't planned for.

Of course the Iraq war could still have failed if we'd had a good, solid, reasonable plan. But going in without a plan guaranteed it would fail. Amazingly, the Bush Administration didn't think that was a problem. That's something beyond incompetence, and for this failure we should blame not only the Bush Administration, but the people who were supposed to be its minders.

"Prove it."

Sure. I'll be happy to supply a detailed mathematical proof as soon as you prove that you're not insane, SCMT...

None of the small, crappy countries thrown against the wall since the demise of the Soviet Union posed any kind of security threat to the US. There is a difference in degree between Democrats and Republicans, certainly a difference in competence, but not a difference in kind.

The demarcation lies between those who think that actions like the invasion of Iraq are morally repugnant regardless of outcome, and those whose primary beef is with the execution of the war. None of Clinton's actions prior to the war, or since then, have given any indication that she has a problem with throwing small crappy countries against the wall, rather than the stains left by such actions on the wallpaper.

"Biden and HRC, imo, share a belief in traditional American internationalism, perhaps a mistaken idea -- but it is so different from anything that could be called Bushian, that the above comparison muddles rather than clarifies."

Yup.

And I'm never sure if Matthew gets to that place via having actually convinced himself of this stuff, or via a desire to try his hand at agitprop. Whichever, he ought to cut it out quick, but when he will, I can only guess.

Yeah, Petey, I'm the one who seems insane. You, OTOH, keep asserting that HRC has communicated to you the one true reason she has taken the positions she's taken, and that people who don't buy that series of limp justifications on offer are crazy. (Or--given your affectations-- probably "caraa-aa-zy.") All you really need to do, Petey, is show us the picture of HRC performing the Vulcan mind-meld on you. Or, you know, STFU. Either one.

"and that people who don't buy that series of limp justifications on offer are crazy"

No, just you, SCMT.

Prove you're not.

And I'm never sure if Matthew gets to that place via having actually convinced himself of this stuff, or via a desire to try his hand at agitprop.

DLC talking points, OTOH, not "agitprop," but rather "the Revealed Word." We're a broad-minded country: to each, his own faith.

They made a number of very clear assertions, both public and private, that it wasn't a vote for regime change.

I'd like to see a little more detail on this.

Of course the Iraq war could still have failed if we'd had a good, solid, reasonable plan. But going in without a plan guaranteed it would fail.

This is what I'm talking about. You have a problem with Bush's execution of the war, you probably had serious misgivings about Bush's competence a priori, but what you and the rest of the DLC do not have a problem with is the policy of invading and occupying countries which do not pose a security threat to the US.

And in that I see no difference between Clinton and the neo-cons: the neocons were not looking for failure either. American power as the instrument of global salvation is a belief both camps share, and differences over the Messenger Chosen to deliver that salvation are intra-, not interdenominational, differences.

One thing no one has mentioned in this thread is 9/11. The hysteria that resulted from 9/11 gave Bush a lot of leeway politically, and he did manipulate people into "supporting the war" (ie, the war resolution). Before 9/11, the idea of invading Iraq was a fringe one.

What I find interesting is that, without either 9/11 or Bush as president, we never would have invaded Iraq. It required both things to be in place at the same time for such an odd policy to be selected. Its also interesting how Bush was able to, over time, use the bully pulpit to make a fringe policy action become so mainstream, such that a majority of Americans supported it. It is one of the few things he has done competently.

Overall, I think I agree most with what Petey is saying above. The main point is that Bush manipulated everyone quite effectively. Matt's main point is still valid, though, which is: such manipulation would not have been possible if these people hadn't already bought into a "bad" (ie, overly militaristic and idealistic) view of how America should conduct itself in the world. Still, there is quite a distance from them and Bush, and we mustn't forget that.

"I'd like to see a little more detail on this."

A large number of Democratic Senators have since talked about having such private conversations with various figures in the WH. Condi Rice seemed to be manning the point on the "it's not regime change" reassurance duty.

The public WH reassurances are all on the record.

Biden-Lugar, of course, was the unsuccessful attempt of the Democratic caucus (along with a handful of Republican Senators) to get some toothless language put into resolution spelling out the reassurances they were being given.

None of Clinton's actions prior to the war, or since then, have given any indication that she has a problem with throwing small crappy countries against the wall, rather than the stains left by such actions on the wallpaper.

Nicely put. I'm always amused (in a slightly queasy way) to see "internationalism" used to mean "dropping bombs on people."

tellingly, Petey talks a lot about intentions, presentation, assertions, interpretations and other fuzzy things, while continually eschewing any discussion of the content of the resolution that the pro-war dems actually voted for

"What I find interesting is that, without either 9/11 or Bush as president, we never would have invaded Iraq. It required both things to be in place at the same time for such an odd policy to be selected."

Yup.

"Its also interesting how Bush was able to, over time, use the bully pulpit to make a fringe policy action become so mainstream, such that a majority of Americans supported it."

He really had one free shot to do anything in 2002, as long as he'd sold it as his "response to 9/11". If he'd wanted to eliminate Social Security to defeat the terrorists, he'd have gotten the votes. If he'd wanted to create a special federal force to shave all the dogs and cats in America to defeat the terrorists, he'd have gotten the votes.

He used his one free shot to get his war instead.

I guess Matt deserves 50 lashes with a wet noodle for erring on the side of bipartisanship, but he has a point. If he had singled out PNAC instead it would have been slightly more accurate, but then the point would have been limited to "those awful Republicans."

Iraq hasn't been a disaster just because it's about a personal vendetta for Bush, as Klein seems to think. Iraq is a disaster because nation-building is practically impossible even in good circumstances; because fighting a war on the cheap (which had a number of causes, not just incompetence or ideology) is almost always a bad idea; because armies can't do everything, not even if they're the America's Men in Uniform; because "greeted as liberators" is a ridiculous fiction that people should have known better about; and because imperialism in all but name is still imperialism, which hasn't done so well in the past century for a variety of reasons of its own. So, yes, Bush deserves most of the blame for the war, but if the only lesson that people like Klein have learned is that Bush sucks, then it's only a matter of time before we Americans start another war just like this.

I respect that you don't want to do my homework for me, Petey, but saying "the public statements are all on the record" isn't much of an answer; it's just reaffirming your claim that they were public. I, personally, do not remember the White House publicly promising any limits whatsoever on the force being authorized; indeed, if they had promised limits, then how would it be a credible threat of force any longer?

The idea of private reassurances is a different point, but again, I don't even know which Senators you're talking about other than Daschle. If they looked Hillary in the eye, for example, and then told her one thing only to do another, you'd expect her to make a bigger deal out of that incident. Instead of trying to blur Obama's war position into looking like her own, you'd expect her to say "On September 27, 2002, Dick Cheney lied to me about the administration's intentions, and I voted for the war because I mistakenly beliefed he wouldn't flat-out lie to me."

Yet that isn't happening, which leads me to wonder if you're not trying to shade a bunch of vague winks and nods into a claim that there was this long list of private and public reassurances. Daschle is one example, apparently. Is he the only one?

He really had one free shot to do anything in 2002, as long as he'd sold it as his "response to 9/11".

Rubbish. Post 2001 the only free shot the US public was willing to grant Bush was the freedom to kick Arab butt. If he had chosen to "shave all the cats and dogs" instead, Republicans in both Senate and Congress would have been applying for new jobs in November 2002 and George "James Earl Surrender Monkey" Bush would have followed suit in 2004.

The US public loves dem some foreign butt kicking. "Strong on national defense", they call it. President Kucinich, anyone?

I'm 100% with Petey on the "one free shot" theory, as far as the national mood goes. Of course, there could have been many more free shots to come if he had used the first one wisely.

Re: "I, personally, do not remember the White House publicly promising any limits whatsoever on the force being authorized"

I think Bush repeatedly said that force would be used as a last resort, or words to that effect.

Yes, the thing about shaving cats and dogs was hyperbole. The fact remains, though, that invading Iraq wasn't done as a cynical bid for political gain. Bush already had taken action in Afghanistan, so he had that checked off the list. If he had not invaded Iraq (or better yet, accepted Saddam's abject humiliation and surrender to the weapons inspectors) he would have absolutely cruised to reelection. If that had happened, Republicans would still be dominating Congress now, and probably for a few years hence.

he fact remains, though, that invading Iraq wasn't done as a cynical bid for political gain. Bush already had taken action in Afghanistan, so he had that checked off the list.

What action? Afghanistan was a sorely unsatisfying action, lacking both the catharsis of televised real time bombing and the capture demise of arch villain Bin Laden. Iraq promised Shock And Awe and Saddam as a telegenic stand in for Osama. As far as political gain went, it may not have been the main course, but it delivered quite nicely, as the 2002 Democratic takeover of congress and President Kerry's 2004 victory demonstrate.

I'm 100% with Petey on the "one free shot" theory, as far as the national mood goes.

I understand the sentiment, but what precisely is the claim here? That, given his public support, any ambitious politician would truckle to his wishes? And that such deference in the face of individual ambition shouldn't be folded into any analysis? Furthermore, my recollection is that he had a fair bit of legislation passed, including a lot that was not related to national security, so I'm not sure "one free shot" is accurate.

I agree that the Iraq issue helped in 2002, but by 2004 it was already a huge drag, and almost cost Bush the election. Politically, it was a game changer. Its going to haunt the Republicans for a long time to come. In fact, I'll be surprised if the Democrats don't control both houses of Congress for the next 20 years.

Obviously, if Bush had known it would turn out so badly he wouldn't have done it. But I would think that, if his main concern was reelection in 2004, he wouldn't do something as risky as invading Iraq.

Regarding Hillary, I think it's extremely doubtful that she would have gone into Iraq if she had been president. I don't see Hillary's foreign policy instincts as being all that different from Bill's. Bill also uses his fair share of hawkish rhetoric and, if you'll recall, invaded a few countries of his own when he was in office. And back in 1994, he thought long and hard about bombing North Korea. And yet, when it came time for him to pull the trigger there, he didn't do it, not because he was opposed to American military assertiveness in principle, but because he listened to experts and was able to recognize reality and didn't want to be responsible for a bloodbath. I think Hillary would do the same if put in a similar situation.

As for Matthew's post, I think I get what he's saying and I think there's a valid point in there, but at the same time I think it's kinda cheating. The point, as I understand it, is not that Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, et al. would have conducted a unilateral invasion of Iraq if they had been in Bush's shoes. I don't even think any of the commenters here (save maybe S-Tim) are making that argument. The point is that if you believe in the basic principle that "as the preeminent military superpower in the world, America should use its military to do good," you create conditions in which the real nutcases are able to do some really crazy shit. Which is true - if the majority of this country's political leaders were opposed to using our military for any purpose other than self-defense, then Bush never would have gotten a "yes" vote on his AUMF with or without the lies.

But it's still unfair. Someone to Matt's left could just as easily deploy the same logic to attack him. One could argue: "An American foreign policy that rejects military assertiveness is pointless as long as the United States remains the richest and most powerful country in the world. As long as you support American strength and prosperity, you allow conditions to exist in which a real nutcase who comes to power would still be capable of doing crazy shit. The only goal that is truly consistent with international justice is to seek to destabilize and weaken the United States! Yglesias' position is just 'of a piece' with a certain mistaken view about what America's standing should be in the world." That would be true too, but that would also be bullshit.

The point is that Clinton, Biden, etc. might be wrong about this issue, but they're not as wrong as Bush or as responsible as Bush and I don't see how bringing up their wrongness works as a defense to Klein's attacks on Bush.

i'm not especially interested in hillary bashing here, but i can't begin to understand how petey can't see hillary as favoring the war - and you don't need the war resolution as evidence. she's had four years to say...anything: "i voted for the war resolution in good faith and bush abused that faith;" "i thought this was a good idea but i was wrong;" "once we dislodged saddam, i felt our work was done and we needed to focus on an exit strategy;" all kinds of possibilities.

she hasn't.

in fact, i rather respect the fact that she has no interest in going down the path of saying "i was misled" or "i apologize" or anything of the sort since it's quite clear that she doesn't think that. which is her right, but which then leaves her as someone who supported the war and not just leveraging the threat of war to get the inspectors in.

in the broader sense, it's amazing that it took klein until now to notice bush's unfitness for office, and matthew is right that seeing the invasion of iraq as merely satisfying bush's personal pique is bu(sh)it.

she hasn't

I'm pretty sure she has said some of those things. In particular, I believe she's made the "good faith/abused" argument; I believe it's an increasingly popular one, ranking just behind "they screwed up our magnificent war" among the DLC crowd and even the once-pro-war Dems. As to whether they're credible...to each, his own faith.

somecallmetim, you're welcome to prove me wrong, but i've been tracking reasonably thoroughly, and i don't believe that hillary has made the good faith/abused argument.

howard:

I'm thinking of statements like this one:

HILLARY: I said that we should not go to war unless we have allies. So he took the authority that I and others gave him and he misused it, and I regret that deeply. And if we had known then what we know now, there never would have been a vote and I never would have voted to give this president that authority.

"I don't even know which Senators you're talking about other than Daschle. If they looked Hillary in the eye, for example, and then told her one thing only to do another, you'd expect her to make a bigger deal out of that incident."

Hillary has spoken publicly about the reassurances she asked for, and was falsely given by the WH about the resolution's purposes.

As to why she doesn't make a bigger deal out it, I think that's probably a smart political decision on her part.

------

And fergawdsakes, would everyone please stop putting me in a position where I have to defend Hillary. She'd be a fucking disaster for the Democratic Party and the progressive movement were she to become the nominee, for a stunningly large number of reasons.

There are plenty of things to slam her about that she really is guilty of, including on Iraq.

Somecallmetim, you prove my point: that is a quote favoring the war. all she is saying is that, had we lined up a big enough coalition, she would have been all for it.

that is not, to me, backing away in the slightest: it's affirming that she believes it was a basically good idea.

which is matthew's point.

petey, no one is making you defend hillary (nor would she be a disaster, but that's a whole 'nother kettle of fish).

"the Iraq War was pushed by a circle of political, policy, and media elites considerably wider than the Bush family and endorsed by an even larger family. Fred Hiatt and Hillary Clinton and Richard Holbrooke and Joe Biden weren't backing this policy in a fit of personal pique,"

This is not accurate.

Hillary Clinton, Richard Holbrooke, Joe Biden did not "push" for Iraq war. In fact I remember all 3 issuing dire warnings about what could go wrong and recommending more time for inspectors to do their job, coalition building, working through UN etc. At the end they went along with it reluctantly.

To put these 3 individuals on the same side with the Hiatts and Kristols is a gross distortion.

No, Matt, the Bush foreign policy does not reflect a neocon bent, except as regard to Iraq. Do the neocons support Bush's stance toward North Korea? Do the neocons support Bush's appeasement of Pakistan?

The Iraq war was a political decision. They rolled out this product to kick off Bush's reelection campaign. Bush couldn't catch bin Laden so he made an easier target the enemy. Think Grenada after the marine barracks bombing in Lebanon under Reagan.

People who supported the Iraq war were played by slick politicos, and may want to debate the foreign policy aspects of the decision, but it wasn't serious then, and it isn't now. The Iraq war was started to get Bush reelected, Mission Accomplished. Debating it in foreign policy terms is nothing less than a cover up. For shame.

like yous mr

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