December 11, 2003

NEOCONS BLACKMAIL BUSH?

by Srdja Trifkovic

On December 9, the Washington Post published a strange article, called "How Dean Could Win," by the editor of the Weekly Standard William Kristol.

"Could Dean really win? Unfortunately, yes," says Kristol and reminds us that "the Democratic presidential candidate has, alas, won the popular presidential vote three times in a row-twice, admittedly, under the guidance of the skilled Bill Clinton, but most recently with the hapless Al Gore at the helm." Kristol's scenario for Bush's defeat looks increasingly unlikely given the bullish macroeconomic indicators of the past few weeks, but isn't completely implausible.

Kristol points out that demographics-the ever-increasing numebrs of Hispanics-favor Dean. Good economic news notwithstanding, Bush is the first president since Hoover under whom there will have been no net job creation, and "the first since Lyndon Johnson whose core justification for sending U.S. soldiers to war could be widely (if unfairly) judged to have been misleading." He will be running for reelection after two years of GOP control of both houses and the voters prefer divided government. Dean is running a "terrific" primary campaign, the most impressive since Carter in 1976. His liberalism is exaggerated: he governed as a centrist in Vermont, and he can accuse Bush of expanding deficits and threatening Social Security.

So far so conventional, Kristol then comes to what is his main point. Don't Bush's response to 9-11, and his overall leadership in the war on terrorism, remain compelling reasons to keep him in office, he asks, and proceeds to give an ambiguous answer:

They do for me. But while Bush is committed to victory in that war, his secretary of state seems committed to diplomatic compromise, and his secretary of defense to an odd kind of muscle-flexing-disengagement. And when Bush's chief of staff, Andrew H. Card Jr., said on Sunday with regard to Iraq, ‘We're going to get out of there as quickly as we can, but not before we finish the mission at hand,' one wonders: Wouldn't Howard Dean agree with that formulation? Indeed, doesn't the first half of that sentence suggest that even the most senior of Bush's subordinates haven't really internalized the president's view of the fundamental character of this war? If they haven't, will the American people grasp the need for Bush's continued leadership on November 2? If not, prepare for President Dean.

The only way to read this bizarre paragraph is this: Bush better lay off Israel and stay deep in Iraq, or else Bill Kristol's friends will back Dean.

Unthinkable? Not at all! The Democrats probably would not have gone to Iraq in the first place, but if they inherit it with US troops still patrolling the streets of Mosul they may prove to be wonderfully appreciative of what the Weekly Standard calls the "fundamental character" of the war. The notion of "nation-building," of spreading democracy and bringing human rights to the benighted foreign masses, has always been the Democrats' specialty. The preoccupation with making the Middle East safe for Our Unsinkable Aircraft Carrier has also, historically, resonated with them more deeply than with the GOP.

Dean's own view is that "now that we're there, we're stuck." whoever is elected in 2004 will have to live with it: "We have no choice. It's a matter of national security. If we leave and we don't get a democracy in Iraq, the result is very significant danger to the United States." Last summer he declared that "bringing democracy to Iraq is not a two-year proposition": "Having elections alone doesn't guarantee democracy. You've got to have institutions and the rule of law, and in a country that hasn't had that in 3,000 years, it's unlikely to suddenly develop by having elections and getting the heck out." Dean would impose a "hybrid" constitution, "American with Iraqi, Arab characteristics. Iraqis have to play a major role in drafting this, but the Americans have to have the final say." He is almost as hawkish on Afghanistan, where "losing the peace is not an option" and "pulling out early would be a disaster." Five times the current level of troops are needed, he told The Washington Post last August.

This sounds like an approach Bill Kristol can live with. Some weeks before his Washington Post article he had already mused on the problem of an essentially sound President-by virtue of having internalized the Kristol Weltanschauung-who is being stabbed in the back by his dovish, spineless minions: "The president eloquently makes the case for a necessarily and admirably ambitious foreign policy. Yet his own administration's deeds threaten the achievement of his goals." Rumsfeld was singled out because of his "dogmatic" commitment to a small Iraqi force although America is "losing the peace" whereas the only acceptable exit strategy is "victory."

Kristol's neoconservative friends have used Bush with skill over the past three years but they still do not trust him. They know that before running for presidency he had no strong views about any foreign topic, the Middle East included, and they only trust people with strong views, their views. They were eager to furnish Bush with key advisors, most notably in the person of Paul Wolfowitz. But Kristol is now telling Bush that some of those advisors are not sound and that they must be replaced-or else it will be doubted if even the President had "fully internalized" the neoconservative view of the war's "fundamental character."

The Weekly Standard crowd's disdain for Colin Powell a self-styled "Rockefeller Republican," has been a weak Secretary of State, whose lack of strong principles and firm convictions has been used by his colleagues with very strong views to set the agenda. That not even Rumsfeld pleases them any longer is a novelty, and singling out those two, as well as Andrew Card, may hint at the scope of Kristol's friends' personnel ambitions for 2004. They know that the Bush family has the reputation for being uncomfortable with ideologues, and they remember George H.W. Bush's 1991 unprecedented row with Israel and its lobby in Washington. Bush-father had defeated Saddam and liberated Kuwait yet within months he was described as a practitioner of "if not anti-Semitism, then something very close to it," as an American Jewish Congress leader famously put it. They also remember, and feel emboldened by, their contribution to Bush Senior's 1992 defeat.

President Bush's reply to Kristol should be to fire Wolfowitz, announce the target date for the withdrawal from Iraq, and invite the authors of the unofficial Geneva Accord to the White House for a well-publicized chat. Whatever Mr. Bush loses with Kristol and other Benevolent Global Hegemonists he will more than gain with all real Americans.

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