Thanks!

Pardon me, but I don't understand how you're "stirring things up" if you're essentially taking the conservative stance on the WOT. A.L., you've defended not only the thinking behind the WOT and Iraq (which I would believe a hawkish liberal interested in "stirring" might do) but you've also dedicated a lot of time to defending the execution of the war and the (poor) decisions made by the administration.

Perhaps you have had disagreement with parts of the administration's approach to and execution of the WOT, think you could you remind me which parts those were?

SAO -

I have? My recollection is that I have tried to put the level of follish incompetence in persepctive - as typical - and to push aside arguments that because the execution of the war was imperfect, we have to stop.

I think that my cohorts and I will be doing a lot of stirring when it comes to reformulating the party, and I'm amused ot note that you unconsciously reaffirm one of Bienert's points when you note that the only kind of 'stirring' you will credit me for is stirring contra the Administration.

A.L.

Hardly, I stated clearly that part of "stirring" might be defending some of the established thinking behind the WOT.

Your project has been to combat the isolationist aspects of the left, but this does not truly qualify as something "new" (for the Democratic party) until it is combined with something unique (and I'm guessing, very robust), something that in some ways will have to be contra to the administration.

Obviously the attempt here by Bienert et al. is not simply to turn the Democrat party into a mirror image of the GOP's international stance-- which is all we'd be left with from what I've read of you.

A.L,

If you thought your shins were sore before...

I dropped this comment on Gabriel Gonzalez in Selling Grand Strategy with a Disloyal Opposition in July 2003 here on Winds and it sure belong here.

"G.G.

A friend of mine said the following about Democrats recently that captures why I blow off pro-war Democrats:

"If the administration makes mistakes and refuses to acknowledge them, they lose. If they do acknowledge them and address them, they also lose.

If we kill the Hussein boys, we lose. If we let them run around alive, we also lose.

After a while, the story here looks to me like: no matter what we do, we lose. Maybe we ought to just go home and admit the whole thing was a mistake.

This is a remarkably unhelpful attitude -- and not terribly constructive."

I go beyond that. It is profoundly unserious in a deeply serious war. Why should I care what you or other pro-war Democratic moderates and liberals think if all of you repeatedly demonstrate that you lack the courage of your convictions?

There are many ways to confront the loons. You can face them in Democratic party functions. You can contribute money to pro-war candidates and PACs. You can make your own pro-war PACs if there aren't any. You can organize like minded Democrats. Hell, you can simply confront them publically.

But whatever you do, DO SOMETHING TO CONFRONT THEM!

You and others like you are not doing a blessed thing except criticizing Bush, in other words, placating your loons. You, and others like you, are in a co-dependent relationship with your anti-war loons. All of you Democratic pro-war liberals and moderates keep hoping that by sharing the loon's phobias about Bush, that you won't get beaten as badly.

There is nothing anyone outside that relationship can do until you pro-war Democrats decide to get out of it."

The real sadness of the 2004 election was that pro-war Democrats never did confront Democratic loons.

There was an article right after the 2004 election that echoed this point. It was titled something like "The Collapse of the Liberal Hawks" and it makes better reading than this Peter Bienert column, because it is reality based.

You can either be a Hawk, or you can be a Democrat.

You cannot be both.

SAO,

Eisenhower's VP, some guy named Nixon, campaigned like hell against the Truman Doctrine and his administration's execution of same. Called it near-treasonous. Then Eisenhower won in 1952, and... the doctrine stayed, and its execution wasn't all that different either.

Of course, there was a substantial wing of the Democrats that essentially favoured the Soviet Union, as manifested in the Wallace wing that Truman crushed. There were also many Republicans who believed in an immediate "rollback" strategy, and China was one of their main targets. Truman believed that approach risked nuclear war, and it seems Eisenhower agreed.

Having the parties coverge on foreign policy fundamentals isn't the worst thing in the world.

It also has the effect of taking foreign policy off the table as an issue, something that would be good for Democrats given that unwillingness to trust them with the nation's security remains one of their biggest weaknesses. Having Andrew Sullivan, Drezner, Adesnik et. al. essentially argue that "Kerry would HAVE to act in ways totally contrary to all of his behaviour we've seen thus far" was, in its own twisted way, the final nail in that case.

When even your SUPPORTERS are reduced to argiung like that, you're... why, you're GM in the 70s, yes you are.

But I'll clarify something on A.L.'s behalf here, if I may. A.L., correct me if I'm wrong here.

He's saying that (a) the war is real, just, and must be fought; and (b) mistakes, even large mistakes, are a normal part of war - and pretending you can prevent them by "planning" is as foolish as believing you cann cure all of an economy's ills by "planning".

With will and perspective thus taken care of, there's plenty of space for liberals to devise their own strategy re: the war. But those 2 things are really the foundations, and you can't neglect them.

Or assume them. The problem is (as you can see from Yglesias' comments) that denial of (a) and (b) are currently taking up way too much real estate in liberal-left thinking. So fighting that thinking and firmly establishing (a) and (b) as foundational principles is an important part of establishing the overall mindset that will become the liberal approach to the war.

Of the 2, natural liberal-left tendencies and fundamental "New Class" belief system will make (b) the tougher sell. The left these days is very, very ivory tower and sheltered... and now you see how A.L.'s focus on "sewer socialism" acts as a needed large-scale corrective that both returns his movement to its roots and fixes some modern flaws, as well as being a prescriptive social policy at home that improves society.

You can be a dem and a hawk. You can be a conservative and be against the war in Iraq. In fact, there a wide spectrum of opinion on the war in Iraq and the war against radical islamic terrorist throughout America that doesn't get picked up when opinions get split into two categories on blogs and in the media: 'neocons' and 'America-haters.'

But since we're living in a society in love with dualities (innocent or guilty, good and evil, 'you're with us or against us', coke or pepsi), I don't suppose that's going to change anytime soon.

Amplifying something Joe alluded to above:

Let’s review: Kerry got 48% of the vote. He got a substantial percentage from those who believed that he meant what he said when he asserted he would get the job done in Iraq (the Drezner/Sullivan case, and the positon taken by several of my own friends who voted for Kerry). He also got a substantial percentage from those who voted for him because they thought he was lying when he said he’d get the job done in Iraq – they believed that Kerry would run away ASAP. Kerry was accused of sending mixed signals. He did, and he did it well, and it came within a few points of working.

SAO, I can a sketch of a Democratic foreign policy which could take the center, might pry away the reluctant Republicans who do not support Bush’s domestic agenda (like M. Simon), and differ substantially from the Bush policy. It would project security as a comprehensive package, not just military power. It would increase the size of the armed forces substantially (e.g. several divisions) to do this. It would supply those troops with weapons, technology and training as a first priority, and cut defense pork to pay for it. It would actively reform institutions like the U.N. instead of complaining about them. It would then cede much more control of any nation building efforts to that reformed body, in return for substantial legitimacy for those efforts.

Consider the effect of such a policy on a country like Iran. Not only could be credibly invade and defeat that country, we’d have the resources to occupy and rebuild it as well, and the international and domestic support to do so. I’m not sure the mullah’s in Iran really believe we could or would invade them right now. We could have done things differently after 9/11 such that the threat of regime change would be much more credible.

I’m not suggesting I’d sign on to all this immediately, but I’d sure listen. I’m not even sure it’s really possible, but like I said, I’d hear it out. I think folks like A.L. and Michael Totten and Roger L. Simon etc would too.

SAO, what I don’t think anyone can do is sketch a foreign policy you’d agree with and would win a national election.

pratike -

I was interested in your post "Getting Ahead of the Game" - but if liberals want to get well ahead of the game, why not join the push for the creation of a new international organization of democratic (only!) nations? Probably without leaving the UN in the meantime - let's see how the UN reacts to the prospect of healthy competition.

This is one positive way that I can see liberals nudging Bush to do something good, while building some bipartisan energy.

I agree with your statement, Joe, that the WOT is "real, just, and must be fought," and I think that this first category will be the most important struggle in any "reshaping" of the left. But, characterizing some of the fundamental/ideological flaws this administration has made as "inevitable" is a bit silly.

(b) mistakes, even large mistakes, are a normal part of war - and pretending you can prevent them by "planning" is as foolish as believing you can cure all of an economy's ills by "planning".