Not Dead Yet...

(Crossposted, as usual)

...that would be the Democratic hawks, you understand. Peter Beinart over at the New Republic is still swinging, at least:

Barack Obama's speech at the Democratic convention drew rave reviews. So did Bill Clinton's. But my nominee for best oration of the week goes to Senator Joseph Biden. On Thursday night at about eight o'clock--long before the networks began their broadcasts--Biden laid out the most compelling Democratic foreign policy vision I have yet heard. I just wish more of it had found its way into John Kerry's acceptance speech two hours later.

A copy of the speech itself can be found here: it was not, of course, covered live. It seems increasingly a shame that this was so; Sen Biden's speech read quite well, and I am curious to how it sounded.

Now, let us be clear on a few things. Senator Biden and Mr Beinart are hardly Bush supporters, and their plan of attack is not identical to that of the Republican party. Both men are indeed critical of our activities in Iraq - and Sen. Biden, at least, goes to a certain length about American unilateralism. That is fine; indeed, that is ideal. It is not to be expected that to agree on aims is to agree on methods... and it is not pernicious to suggest that the liberation of Iraq was not a necessary and desirable action in the War on Terror. I would disagree with those so suggesting, but that doesn't make them bad people, or even foolish ones.

But if these people are in disagreement with me, they are also not necessarily in agreement with Kerry. Beinert again:

Kerry also lauded American values, saying, "I know the power of our ideals. We need to make America once again a beacon in the world. We need to be looked up to and not just feared." But, because he hadn't defined the enemy by reference to its ideas, his statement about American principles lacked context and force. A beacon is also a very different metaphor than a sword. Biden said the "death struggle between freedom and radical fundamentalism ... breached our shores on September 11." Notice the implication: The war against radical Islam began before September 11--in other corners of the globe. Thus, victory requires the United States to play an active role in conflicts within other societies, particularly Muslim ones. Kerry's statement, by contrast, can be read as a call merely for the United States to live out its ideals at home, secure that the world is watching. Indeed, his speech said nothing about promoting democracy in Iraq or anywhere else.

By defining America's war less expansively, Kerry implicitly asked less of the American people. Speaking about Iraq, he said, "We need a president who has the credibility to bring our allies to our side and share the burden, reduce the cost to American taxpayers, and reduce the risk to American soldiers. That's the right way to get the job done and bring our troops home." But there's a trade-off between "get[ting] the job done" and "bring[ing] our troops home." Kerry could have said we need more foreign troops in Iraq to buttress the existing American ones--and thus achieve the overall number General Eric Shinseki famously said was necessary to secure the country. Instead, he implied that we need foreign troops to replace American ones. The focus wasn't on America and its allies doing more together; it was on America's allies doing more so America can do less.

Look, I don't want to inflate what's going on here. Everybody knows that political parties only look monolithic from the outside: inside all the divisions are pretty clear, and a good national campaign is one where all the major fault lines were wallpapered over until after the election. And it's also clear that both Biden and Beinart are going to more or less sit still for being wallpapered over, because they both want their party's designated candidate elected (which is a perfectly reasonable thing to want, of course). I just want to remind my Republican colleagues that our party has been fortunate thus far in the way that the Democratic Party has steered a nuanced course on the war - and to warn that, in the event of a Kerry loss in November, there is an excellent chance that the opposition party will allow the unabashedly interventionalist hawks back in the driver's seat with dizzying speed.

Which would be a good thing, remember. Yes, even if it means that Republicans lose more elections.

(Via Michael Totten)

Moe

Comments

[praktike]

Au contraire, I'd wager that if Kerry loses the knives will be out for the liberal hawks. Because the peaceniks have kind of had to bite their lips for the campaign.

And let's not forget: Liberman was Beinert's boy.

[Dave Schuler]

praktike, you are spot on. According to the CBS News/New York Times poll of Democratic National Convention delegates for 2004, the overwhelming preponderance of delegates disapprove of the war in Iraq apparently regardless of the outcome. Now I realize that interpretation of poll results like these are something of a Rorschach test but my interpretation is that Democratic delegates—who can reasonably be interpreted to be the most active and influential people in the party—are more less-hawkish than the position that either Mr. Kerry or Mr. Biden has articulated. Such a finding would not seem to indicate that a post-defeat Democratic Party would be likely to purge the doves from its ranks but the hawks.

[Dave Schuler]

"More less-hawkish"! Forsooth! Make that "less hawkish".

[Fabius]

Dave - whether more less hawking or less hawkish we all understood you to mean more or less less hawkish. Forsooth, I mean to say that your first post was as much for sooth as the second and the second neither added nor detracted soothness from the first. Sooth-wise, I don't if either hawks or doves will be purged from ranks but you might have a point if you mean that the dove may be calling the shots for the next two years. Even at that, a Bush victory will force an even greater Democratic unity in 2008.