The Art of Ambipartisanship

It's conventional wisdom that when your opponents are bickering among themselves, it's best to simply stand back and let them go at it. But the expanding fissure between neoconservatives and more isolationist traditional conservatives (who are increasingly calling for withdrawal from Iraq) is threatening to involve liberals somewhat and in doing so is making the neocons look a wee bit, shall we say, opportunistic.

From today's New York Times

"If we have to make common cause with the more hawkish liberals and fight the conservatives, that is fine with me, too," [William Kristol, the editor of The Weekly Standard] said.

Recalling a famous saying of his father, the neoconservative pioneer Irving Kristol, that a neoconservative was "a liberal who has been mugged by reality," the younger Mr. Kristol joked that now they might end up as neoliberals — defined as "neoconservatives who had been mugged by reality in Iraq."

Among the "hawkish" liberals Kristol seems willing to coinsider joining forces with (somewhat) in his battle against conservative opponents is John Kerry, whose insistence that we get more troops into Iraq is something Kristol strongly advocates.

Not that he's ready to vote for Kerry yet, mind you, but...

Mr. Kristol said in an interview on Friday: "I will take Bush over Kerry, but Kerry over Buchanan or any of the lesser Buchananites on the right. If you read the last few issues of The Weekly Standard, it has as much or more in common with the liberal hawks than with traditional conservatives."

Any port in a storm, eh Mr. Kristol?

Comments

[von]

Any port in a storm, eh Mr. Kristol?

No, not at all. (I'm an admirer of Mr. Kristol, by the bye.) Right now, there are three visions for US foreign policy; and, contrary to popular opinion, they're not mutually exclusive:

A. An internationalist foreign policy that places primary reliance on multinational approval. Kerry is pretty firmly in this group.

B. An internationalist foreign policy that places primary reliance on the US's national interest. Bush is mostly identified with this group, although I'm not sure this is entirely accurate.

C. A protectivist foreign policy -- i.e., a non-foreign foreign policy. The anti-free-tradeteers, Buchanan, Nadar, and Kucinich all fall into this group (more or less).

Kristol has always staked a position as being a "B," but knows that, pragmatically, he oft-times must settle for "A." (In fact, that's almost identical to my position, 'tho I'm willing to settle for A more frequently than Mr. Kristol.) "C", in Kristol's opinion, is the worst of all worlds. (And I agree with him there as well.)

It's not surprising, then, that Kristol is willing to pick A over B over C. That remains true even though strategy A has not been executed to Mr. Kristol's liking. Indeed, although I happen to believe that a badly-executed A is worse than B, there's nothing inconsistent in Mr. Kristol's believing otherwise (or thinking that A has not quite been so badly executed as I would argue).

[Edward]

dammit...sorry Von, but I deleted the wrong one...the order is contrary to what you'd expect...

should I just delete this now and let us start from scratch?

[asdf]

Let me anticipate Edward and muse about whether Mr. Kristol or Mr. Von would prefer FUBAR Iraq to no-invasion Iraq.

[von]

Ah, hell, I'll just repost.

Any port in a storm, eh Mr. Kristol?

No, not at all. (I'm an admirer of Mr. Kristol, by the bye.) Right now, there are three visions for US foreign policy; and, contrary to popular opinion, they're not mutually exclusive:

A. An internationalist foreign policy that places primary reliance on the US's national interest. Bush is mostly identified with this group, although I'm not sure this is entirely accurate.

B. An internationalist foreign policy that places primary reliance on multinational approval. Kerry is pretty firmly in this group.

C. A protectivist foreign policy -- i.e., a non-foreign foreign policy. The anti-free-tradeteers, Buchanan, Nadar, and Kucinich all fall into this group (more or less).

Kristol has always staked a position as being a "B," but knows that, pragmatically, he oft-times must settle for "A." (In fact, that's almost identical to my position, 'tho I'm willing to settle for A more frequently than Mr. Kristol.) "C", in Kristol's opinion, is the worst of all worlds. (And I agree with him there as well.)

It's not surprising, then, that Kristol is willing to pick A over B over C. That remains true even though strategy A has not been executed to Mr. Kristol's liking. Indeed, although I happen to believe that a badly-executed A is worse than B, there's nothing inconsistent in Mr. Kristol's believing otherwise (or thinking that A has not quite been so badly executed as I would argue).

[von]

Let me anticipate Edward and muse about whether Mr. Kristol or Mr. Von would prefer FUBAR Iraq to no-invasion Iraq.

Can't speak for Mr. Kristol, but I'd easily take a non-FUBAR Iraq. Though, I'd note that under Saddam, Iraq was already pretty darn near FUBAR'ed.

[asdf]

Allow me to reframe the question.

Failed state Iraq or Saddam Iraq?

[von]

Failed state Iraq or Saddam Iraq?

That's easy: Saddam. Here, I'll take the Devil that I know -- particularly 'cause he's a "Devil that I know and is mostly in a box".

[Edward]

That's easy: Saddam. Here, I'll take the Devil that I know -- particularly 'cause he's a "Devil that I know and is mostly in a box".

Then, whether we should have invaded Iraq or not boils down to whether we believed we had a good chance at success or not.

And whether we had a good chance at success or not boils down to the faith we had in 1) our intelligence, 2) our military / coalition, and 3) our post-combat planning.

I'd say you don't go to war without extreme confidence in at least two of the three.