The United States Senate has always had an
extraordinarily important role in the conduct of
foreign and national security policy, from true
oversight and Senate confirmation, to war powers and treaty
ratification.
Senator Harry Reid will soon lead a Senate,
and a Democratic Caucus in the Senate, that
is gifted with one of the strongest national
security and foreign policy line-ups of leaders
in the history of the institution.
Having worked for significant Senators such as
Birch Bayh, Max Baucus and Lloyd Bentsen
and then the House Democratic Leadership,
I have dealt with many of the players and now
believe that Senator Harry Reid could become
the kind of historic public figure that some
Senate Majority Leaders have risen to, in the
past.
First, the great challenge of American national
security in 2006; then why Senator Reid and
the Democratic Senate will rise to the occasion.
In recent years the United States has been
governed by the functional equivalent of a
one party State, and that one party state
has been dominated by a rejectionist and
extreme faction that is far outside the tradition
of American national security strategy.
President Bush and Vice President Cheney
have not only been influenced by, but have
been the leaders of, this extreme and radical
rejectionism of the core idea that has embodied
American security for every President, of both
parties, since Franklin Roosevelt.
President Kennedy said it concisely: we should
never negotiate out of fear, but we should never
fear to negotiate. Every President since FDR
has fundamentally followed the practice that
both our military and our diplomacy must be
strong, effective and coordinated under the
umbrella of a larger strategic vision and unified
democratic alliance.
President Bush and Vice President Cheney
violated every cardinal rule of this long time
consensus. They have acted as though the
United States would only negotiate with our
friends, never our enemies. They have been
outright hostile to the core value of diplomacy,
either taking a pure rejectionist position, simply
refusing negotiations as a matter of principle,
or engaging in watered down fig leaf diplomacy
that was either intended to fail, or was doomed to fail.
The result of this Bush-Cheney rejectionism,
and the dominance of the rejectionist extreme
of the Republican Party, has been disregard
for advice from our strongest allies, disunity
of the democratic alliance itself, structural
decay and destabilization of our military force
structure, the erosion of our deterrent power, and the catastrophic
alienation of public opinion around the world.
This Bush-Cheney Doctrine, is a radical and
extreme deviation not only from the common
practices of every President since FDR, but a
radical and extreme deviation from the common
practices of every Repubican President since
Eisenhower.
Eisenhower warned about the dangers of a
policy of one-dimensional militarism in his
famous "military-industrial complex" warning.
Ike stood second to none in supporting a strong
military but understood it must always be
accompanied by an equally strong diplomacy.
Richard Nixon sought nuclear arms control
with the Soviets and opened the door to China.
Gerald Ford continued arms control talks with
the Soviets and the China opening. Ronald
Reagan understood the possiblility of historic
change with the arrival of Gorbachev, and
with Gorbachev, achieved monumental
breakthroughs over the opposition of many
in the rejectionist rightist wing of the Republican
Party.
President George Herbert Walker Bush worked
with allies and adversaries to steer the world
through the end of the Cold War, then worked
with senior Democrats and our allies to build
a powerful global coalition that prevailed in the
first Persian Gulf War, then directly avoided
the catastrophic mistakes of the current Iraq
War.
It is no coincidence that the Bush-Cheney team
planning the Iraq war expressed a sneering
contempt for President G.H.W. Bush's conduct
of the first Gulf War. In reality, they expressed
a sneering contempt for the panoramic premise
of strategic policy agreed upon by every single
President since Franklin Roosevelt.
For the first in American history since Harry
Truman, there is no American leadership for
a broader Middle East peace. For the first time since FDR there is a
functional failure to lead the democratic alliance. For the first time
since George Washington America suffers stunning defeats in the global
battle of ideas, creating
ever-increasing dangers in the global battle
against terrorism. For first time since Dwight
Eisenhower our military has been destabilized
by a one dimensional policy and pillaged by profiteering
My great hope for Senator Reid emerging as
a historically important Majority Leader, and for Democrats in Congress
to contribute to great events and become a majority governing party, is
to offer alternatives that begin with this:
There can be compromise with Republicans,
but there cannot be compromise with the radical rejectionist wing of the
Republican Party
that rejects in principle a diplomacy that will
mobilize our allies, and offer solutions to those
who are not our allies.
My great hope for Senator Reid emerging as
a historically important Majority Leader is that
he begins where John F. Kennedy left off, a
strong support for our military, a strong support
for creative diplomacy, and above all, a full
understanding that our success is based on
a powerful stand in the battle of ideas.
No policy will work, unless it offers hope and
inspiration to young people around the world,
suffering from poverty, angry at social injustice,
feeling the humiliation, desperation, fulility and
rage that is the breeding ground for the suicide
bomber.
The policy in Iraq has degenerated into a
combination of Vietnam (quagmire without
simple resolution), Lebanon in the 1980's
(militia death squads ripping the heart from
the spirit of the country), and early stage
Bosnia (slow motion ethnic cleansing)
with the real and deadly danger that this
breakdown could engulf the wider circle
of the Middle East.
My hope for Senator Reid becoming a historic
Majority Leader would be for Democrats to
move beyond incremental challenges to
catastrophically failed policies, and offer
bold new policies, based on the taditional
paradigm of post-World War II presidents,
to offer allies and the world the true hope for
a better life and safer world.
Why not propose a 60 day cease fire in Iraq
that would offer a halt fo the carnage and the
beginning of a policy of hope? Why not call
for a 60 day genuine reconciliation conference
in Iraq with a brutally clear warning to the
government that forces aligned with their
government must stop killing their people?
Why not accompany this cease fire proposal
with an allied and Gulf State financed program
that would begin with Iraq, and potentially be
available to the region, for dramatic financing
of programs that would make life better if and
when reconciliation agreements are reached?
This approach would facilitate greater and
faster training of Iraqi forces and make more
realistic the prospect for a workable exit
strategy, but more important it would offer
Iraqis a genuine hope and better life.
Tactical changes such as force redeployments and phased withdrawls may
be desirable, but unless we offer the authentic hope of a better life,
the situation remains on automatic pilot to increasing chaos and greater
death.
My great hope for Senator Reid becoming a
historic Majority Leader is that he has the
talents and temperament that are perfectly suited for our times, and an
extraordinary Caucus of Senate Democrats that has a wealth of talent and
leadership figures.
Senator Reid is strong on political principle,
clear about national strategy, and very much
in the tradition of great Senators with great
respect for the institution of the Senate. He
the talent for working respectfully to bring
out the best in a diverse world of high quality
Senators.
The great untold story of 2006, which I believe
will be clear by 2007, is the exceptional number
of truly outstanding Senators in the Democratic
Caucus. While the Washington wags say they
all want to be President, in truth, many of them
are well qualified to be President, while others
harbor no presidential ambition but are greatly
gifted in talent.
The Senate under Harry Reid will be a great
incubator of ideas, with a Caucus well above
the cut of historical average. Senators such
as Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, Chris Dodd,
Evan Bayh, John Kerry, Barack Obama and others are authentic potential
presidents.
Bill Nelson, Diane Feinstein and Barbara Boxer
are enormously talented and skilled and
could join that list if they choose to.
Carl Levin is a national security scholar and
leader with tremendous stature and respect
on both sides of the aisle.
Senators such as Jay Rockefeller and Jack
Reed are authentic national security leaders
and heavyweights. Jim Webb will be a major
power on national security on his first day in
the Senate. Ted Kennedy is not only a great
progressive Lion of the Senate, but a Senate
man with a long track record of working with
Republicans to get things done. Robert Byrd
is a man of unprecedented reverence for the
Senate and a wise brand of statesmanship
and parliamentary genius.
Finally, Senator Reid comes from the school
that maintains first principles of policy but offers
to work in good faith for genuine bipartisan
achievement when possible. There are some
major Republican Senators of substance and
stature such as John Warner and Chuck Hagel
who fully appreciate how far Bush policies have
strayed from tradtional consensus and common
sense, and could be occasoinal partners for
Senator Reid and Democrats on matters that
serve the national interest.
It is very possible that the man, the moment
and the Majority Leadership come together
in Senator Reid to restore the Senate to its
historic role, to restore a national security
debate that returns to the historic consensus
of American Presidents, and that restores
the Democratic Party to a party of power
and principle that will elect a Democratic
President in 2008.
Senator Reid will be a great Majority Leader.
He has the potential to be a historic Majority
Leader, in a historic United State Senate.