The audacity of Obama

[M. Bréqs]

Interesting point. I wonder if Obama will actually sabotage his own chances at winning the Dem nomination...

If politics were a fairy tale, Barack Obama would surely be the next president of the United States. With his melting pot roots (father Kenyan, mother Kansan, born in Hawaii) and his molten hot rhetoric, Obama can seem like a cross between Martin Luther King and John F. Kennedy --a living opportunity for Democrats to relive the sixties, but without the bitter arguments that split the party over civil rights.

An Obama victory in '08 would also exorcise the memory of that other lingering 1960s nightmare: Vietnam. It was, after all, Kennedy who committed the United States to military intervention in what was effectively Vietnam's civil war. But Obama's line is diametrically opposite. If he's said it once, he's said it a hundred times: he did not vote for the Iraq war. Last month, he went a step further, introducing a bill ("The Iraq War De-escalation Act") that would mandate "a phased redeployment of U.S. forces with the goal of removing all U.S. combat forces from Iraq by March 31st, 2008."

Were this bill to become law (which is, of course, unlikely), the last American soldier would be out of Iraq with seven months of presidential campaigning still to go.

Obama's anti-war stance is widely seen as his trump card as he goes head to head with Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination. Despite her best efforts, Senator Clinton finds herself in John Kerry territory, having originally voted for the war, but now opposing it. Should Obama win this contest, his supporters reason, he would also be well placed to beat any of the Republican front-runners. John McCain is seen as particularly vulnerable on Iraq. Not only did he support the war; he has also backed President Bush's latest attempt to salvage the situation with a "surge" of extra troops.

Yet conventional wisdom on presidential races at this early stage nearly always turns out to be wrong. Obama's stance on Iraq may yet prove to be his biggest vulnerability -- just as McCain's consistency, based on years of hard-won military and political experience, might just be his biggest strength.

Take a look at Obama's arguments for a speedy U.S. withdrawal. Speaking on the Senate floor on Jan. 30, he asserted that "redeployment remains our best leverage to pressure the Iraqi government to achieve … political settlement between its warring factions." The key is "to give Iraqis their country back," since "no amount of American soldiers can solve the political differences at the heart of somebody else's civil war." He repeated these words when he announced that he was running for the presidency last weekend.

But Obama's claim that an American withdrawal would somehow "pressure the Sunni and Shia to come to the table and find peace" is a fraud. On the contrary, an American withdrawal is much more likely to lead to an escalation of the internecine conflict that is tearing Iraq apart. In a devastating paper for the Brookings Institution, Daniel L. Byman and Kenneth M. Pollack have pointed out that, given the vast potential for violence that exists in the Middle East, we ain't seen nothin' yet.

If the U.S. pulls out, as Obama recommends, Byman and Pollack predict "a humanitarian nightmare" in which we should expect "hundreds of thousands (conceivably even millions) of people to die". There could also be huge economic fallout, with oil prices surging above $100 a barrel as the war spilled over into neighbouring countries.

A key lesson of recent civil wars is that they seldom stay localized: think of the conflicts between Israelis and Palestinians, Serbs, Croats and Muslims in Bosnia, Hutus and Tutsis in Rwanda. In each case neighbours became involved, often as a result of the huge refugee flows caused by the initial conflict. If Iraq follows the same pattern, Byman and Pollack suggest, we could expect to see 13 million internally displaced persons and six million cross-border refugees. Terrorist organizations would flourish. A major regional war could end up breaking out between Iran and the predominantly Sunni powers to the west of Iraq.

Obama's call for rapid withdrawal from Iraq would make some sense if he was an old-fashioned isolationist. But he's not. His best-selling memoir-cum-manifesto, The Audacity of Hope, dismisses isolationism as unworkable: out of both self-interest and altruism, the United States has no alternative but to "help make the world more secure." Looking back on the Rwandan genocide, he reflects that "an international show of force … might have stopped the slaughter."

Obama has also accused the Bush administration of doing too little to stop the murderous policies of the Sudanese government towards the people of Darfur. In an article in December, 2005, he argued that "advisers from Western nations" should be embedded within the African Union's mission in Darfur, and that the United States should "work with other nations to provide military assets to African Union forces, such as attack helicopters and armoured personnel carriers." Indeed, he went so far as to urge the deployment of "a UN- or NATO-led force."

Here are two grim situations, each likely to spiral out of control. But in one (Sudan) Obama recommends military intervention, while in the other (Iraq) he recommends military withdrawal.

What is particularly objectionable is that Obama appears to have forgotten Colin Powell's Pottery Barn rule, as famously enunciated on the eve of the invasion of Iraq: "You break it, you own it." Far more than in Sudan, the United States has a burning moral responsibility to prevent Iraq from plunging into a bloodbath. When Obama refers to "someone else's civil war," you have to ask how he thinks this civil war got started...

[D K]

nah, he's just playing up to the popular opinion like a politician does.
of course the redeployment bill won't get passed, but it presents him to the public a certain way. it's so easy to see through this bullshit if you choose to.

[jb61264]

I don't see Obama having enough real experience in much of anything to be making a run for presidency...don't get me wrong though, I'm glad to see an African American male running...just wish it was Colin Powell at this time though...now there is an immediately electable African American that should run for President...he would get my vote!

[ethios4]

Good points there. The "pull out of Iraq" idea is appealing to people that are sick of the war, but I agree it would be pretty dangerous to completely pull out and let the chips fall. From a political standpoint, just about anything that happens in the future could be blamed back on the decision to pull out so quickly, rather than stay the course. Of course, the base problem is how we get in Iraq in the first place, but for some reason I feel history might be rougher on the president who prematurely pulls out of Iraq than the president who mistakenly got us there in the first place.

To me, the problem is that we are in a war we never should have been in in the first place, so victory will likely be forever elusive, yet if we abandon the scene we will be justly blamed for making things much much much worse. So we have to consider the very real possibility that there is no good way out of this, and try to forge a middle ground between staying until "victory" or immediate withdraw that will offer the Iraqi's the best chance of making it, without completely exhausting the military.


I keep coming back to the idea that there should be a draft and significant taxation to support wars. It would hurt in many ways, but war should never be an easy venture to get into, IMO

[Kodama]

I kind of see the Iraq war as a self-inflicted case of gangreen, the outcome will suck either way, if we pull out now we lose half our arm, if we wait, what else do we (and Iraq) lose, just more slowly?

[Novel]

I don't think that it's possible for the USA to stabilize the Middle East

[M. Bréqs]

I keep coming back to the idea that there should be a draft and significant taxation to support wars. It would hurt in many ways, but war should never be an easy venture to get into, IMO

I agree with you about taxation, and I would add rationing, extended work hours and martial law.

But having soldiered myself, I wouldn't want to have been burdened with conscripts; they're worse than not having enough soldiers. Honestly. They reduce your capability rather than augment it.

[kramerica]

I keep coming back to the idea that there should be a draft and significant taxation to support wars. It would hurt in many ways, but war should never be an easy venture to get into, IMO

I agree with you about taxation, and I would add rationing, extended work hours and martial law.

But having soldiered myself, I wouldn't want to have been burdened with conscripts; they're worse than not having enough soldiers. Honestly. They reduce your capability rather than augment it.

How bout we let gays that WANT to serve our nation into the military then? Seems like that would be a better first step than conscription, imo.

Does Canada have an anti-gay military policy as well (attn: M. Breqs)? I know most, if not all, of the Western European armed forces have abandoned any such prohibition.

[robin]

Audacity?

http://audacity.sourceforge.net/

[M. Bréqs]

How bout we let gays that WANT to serve our nation into the military then? Seems like that would be a better first step than conscription, imo.

Does Canada have an anti-gay military policy as well (attn: M. Breqs)? I know most, if not all, of the Western European armed forces have abandoned any such prohibition.

Canada used to, but not anymore. There was a wierd catch-22 for a brief period.

The Supreme Court decided that to refuse enlistment to homosexuals was against the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. However, the Code of Service Discipline had special exemption for soldiers / sailors / airmen.

(This was so that we could administer military justice, which was by necessity tougher than civilian justice... For instance, execution was a military punishment for certain offences such as desertion under fire, treason, mutiny, etc but execution is directly against the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.)

soooo... the Supreme court could force the military to enroll homosexuals, since to refuse them would be a violation of their charter rights. However, once they were in, they were exempt from charter protection, and would be charged with buggery or homosexuality or perversion (whatever they named the offence); This offence carried a sentance of immediate discharge, so they would be kicked out dishonourably the day they joined.

But that ended in the early '90s or so. Now we allow homosexuals in all trades. We also allow women in the Infantry, though they're still barred from Submarine service. A while ago they were talking about getting an all-female sub crew established, but the program seems "dead in the water"...

[ethios4]

How bout we let gays that WANT to serve our nation into the military then? Seems like that would be a better first step than conscription, imo.

I see MB's point about conscripted army people being a hindrance. My reasoning for the draft was not to have more soldiers, but to create a real connection between a country's decision to go to war and its non-military population. As it stands now in the US, war has been made very easy on regular people, so most people didn't think too much about the consequences of going into Iraq.

[kabuki]

This reminds me of a brilliant quote from the Onion:

"Let's stop thinking of it as MiddleEastern CONFLICT, and start thiniking of it as MiddleEastern CULTURE"

The scars go much deeper that we could have ever healed. We should have never gone in there. We should not have a base in Saudi Arabia.

We should give Israel all manners of defending THEMSELVES, and we should let them do it.

IMO.

I pray that Gore gets back in it, and wipes his ass with the NeoCon scum that stole the election from America. But Obama will do if Gore doesn't.

[glu]

I don't think that it's possible for the USA to stabilize the Middle East

thank you

[pax]

Armenian Proverb:
One idiot threw a stone in the well, fourty wise people couldn't get it out.



Probably the reasoning used by Cheney for attacking Iran.

[Machinate]

nah, he's just playing up to the popular opinion like a politician does.
of course the redeployment bill won't get passed, but it presents him to the public a certain way. it's so easy to see through this bullshit if you choose to.

well put, D K, and nicely seen. I am convinced you are right.

It's amazing that the article, given the origin of the author!, doesn't go into detail about this - In Denmark such a blatantly rushed article would turn a few faculty heads for sure!