The Politics of Force

by G'Kar

Will the next president get the U.S. out of Iraq? The signs aren't encouraging.

Not when I read a profile of Hillary Clinton and see this sentence:

An interview with Mrs. Clinton, conversations with 35 Clinton administration officials and a review of books about her White House years suggest that she was more of a sounding board than a policy maker, who learned through osmosis rather than decision-making, and who grew gradually more comfortable with the use of military power.

Please raise your hand if you think that what we need in the White House is a president who is very comfortable with using military power. I say that, and then I realize that there is a rather significant fraction of the electorate who seems to think that our problem in the years following the September 11th attacks has been that we haven't used our military enough. We've had troops in Afghanistan since late 2001, troops in Iraq since mid-2003, neither commitment appears likely to end soon, and yet there are a nontrivial number of voters who think it's vital that we get busy bombing Iran because they might produce a few nuclear weapons.

Nor do I blame Senator Clinton for emphasizing that particular aspect of her experience as First Lady. (As an aside, one not-inconsiderable benefit to Senator Clinton winning the 2008 race would be the potential to eliminate the archaic notion that a politician's spouse is supposed to be little more than an attractive appendage.) While I don't have numbers to prove it, I don't think I'm going too far out on a limb if I not that the most common attack used against Democrats in modern American politics is that they're weak, that they're not willing to use force to protect American interests.

This is, not to put too fine a point on it, belied by the available evidence. Yes, Jimmy Carter was reluctant to use force and infamously asked if the commandos designated to try and rescue the hostages in Tehran could use nonlethal force, but he still went ahead and gave the mission the go-ahead. And Bill Clinton showed no hesitation at all in using force against America's enemies, real or imagined, escalating American involvement in Somalia, halting an invasion of Haiti only hours before it began when there was a diplomatic breakthrough, putting American troops on the ground in Kosovo and Bosnia, bombing Serbia for months over Kosovo and putting more American troops in Kosovo, not to mention his bombings of Iraq and the Sudan. And yet Bill Clinton is considered to be a dove in the twisted logic of American politics.

Senator Clinton is still the odds-on favorite to be the next President of the United States. But I've seen little to suggest she or any other 'serious' contender will make any major improvement over the current occupant of the Oval Office. Nor is this a fault particular to Senator Clinton or any of the other candidates. It is a symptom of how Americans view their right to act in the world. Until such time as the voters of the United States realize that they have no particular right to bomb anyone simply because they think it's for the best, we will be saddled with presidential candidates who work to become 'comfortable' with the use of military power.

Comments

[john miller]

"comfortable with the use of military power."

Very scary words. I have no problem with someone being comfortable with the fact that sometimes the use of the military is necessary, but being comfortable with the use of that power bothers me.

Any use of our military in a way that results in loss of life should, IMO, always be undertaken reluctantly and without a sense of "comfortableness". And it is true that at times the Democrats have felt the need to show they are comfortable with it due to the Republican sound machine putting out the inaccurate message that Dems are weak on national security.

Carter's question about lethality was a legitimate question, but the more telling thing is that he went ahead with the mission.

Of course, that fact that it failed was used to smear him as not being willing to do more.

I think you hit the nail on the head when you point out that the American public sometimes clamors for more. War is exciting and produces an adrenline rush. The more mundane ways of dealing with non-existential threats, such as terrorist groups, even though more effective, don't have the same excitement.

[Incertus (Brian)]

But I've seen little to suggest she or any other 'serious' contender will make any major improvement over the current occupant of the Oval Office.

Here's where I think you take your argument too far. Any Democrat, even Clinton, will be an improvement over King George the Lesser, even if you limit it to the narrow scope of the willingness to use force. The question is how much of an improvement that person will be. I happen to think that of the big three Democrats, both Obama and Edwards would be better in that area than Clinton, and I give Obama the edge because he was opposed to the Iraq War back when it wasn't an electoral winner. I think Edwards is better than Clinton because he learned from his mistake. But don't forget that Bush came into office wanting a war in Iraq--I don't see any of the big three Dems with a war on the agenda.

[RepubAnon]

Given that Hillary was First Lady at the time, just how much "learning through decision-making" was possible during her husband's presidency?

That said, Hillary Clinton seems to suffer from military-solution-itis to some degree (eg Kyl-Lieberman). We seem to have fallen back into an age of militarism as glamorous, sort of like the British Empire just before it went broke and was crushed by the Japanese at the outset of WW-2. (Not enough money in the budget to fight a 2-ocean war, so when faced with both the Germans and the Japanese...)

World War 2 spread the American ideals of democracy and prosperity throughout the world - Bush and Cheney have spread the ideals of a return to autocratic rule by dictatorships in its stead. (Look at Putin's Russia, Burma/Myanmar, and China's increasing influence for W's effect on world politics) What we need right now is someone willing to try to lead us to a well-articulated goal, and not someone trying to "triangulate" their way into power through nuanced statements.

The sad thing is - the defeat of the Clinton health care reform plan by reactionaries taught her not to get too far ahead of the pack. Back when we all felt safe and comfortable, this was risky. Now, we're polar bears trying to decide whether to stay on our current ever-shrinking ice floe and eventually drown, or make a risky swim to the ever-receding shore while it's still within swimming range. Swimming to the middle won't solve anything.

[Dan Riley]

You made an elementary logic error: "more comfortable" and "very comfortable" are not interchangable. For all we can tell from the quoted passage, "more comfortable" could mean she moved from "very uncomfortable" to "moderately uncomfortable".

[DCA]

Of course, if you got a President who showed what would be the appropriate reluctance to commit the military to combat, then you'd have to answer the Madeline Albright question: What is the point to having this military (and spending this much money on it) if we are "never going to use it"? A partial answer (but not a satisfactory one in an age of short news cycles) is that "never" should not be equated to "in response to this week's (or even this year's) crisis". Another one would be that an appropriate use of a large military is as a deterrent and a threat (hence my restriction about committing to combat--IMHO, Bush was right to ramp up next to Iraq to get the UN inspectors back to look at a possible danger). But a really serious answer would be "Well, maybe the military *could* be smaller"--and I fear that this is electorally unacceptable, given how much the current administration has both sheltered Americans from the cost of a large military, and worked to make them more afraid.

[Hartmut]

DCA, don't forget the guys (e.g. Rumsfeld) that are unhappy because all those expensive big nukes rot in their depots and want smaller ones that can be used. I just wait for the first war started because the weaponry was approaching its sell-by date (I hear a lot of the cruise missiles fitted that bill but I do ot want to insinuate that was the real reason ;-) ).
There is (probably vain) hope that the over-the-top bloodthirsty rhetorics of the current GOP candidates will backfire enough for a popular change of mind.

[Gary Farber]

"Yes, Jimmy Carter was reluctant to use force and infamously asked if the commandos designated to try and rescue the hostages in Tehran could use nonlethal force"

I don't want to bug you with having to spend time on looking up stuff that's perhaps a petty detail, but if you have a moment, I'm curious as to exactly what you have in mind as regards this. If it's a well-known episode to some, I'm afraid I'm unfamiliar with it.