Iraq as Metaphor

All issues are equal, but some issues are more equal than others. Those more equal give an insight into decision making, leadership style, and even character. Anyone who has served in office is familiar with the question, "Why did he/she do that?," meaning why did that politician do what they did? It is a question impossible to answer, that is without having some divine access to the inner recesses of an individual's mind or even soul.

Great decisions, however, can reveal how future great decisions might be made. No decision since the so-called Gulf of Tonkin resolution in Vietnam is more important than the vote on the 2002 war resolution on Iraq. Unlike health care, economic stimulus, immigration, and a host of other concerns, on that question there is clear difference between the Democratic finalists.

For those in the process of deciding between them for super Tuesday and beyond, they should be urged to consider this question very seriously. Those who decided to grant George W. Bush virtually unilateral authority to invade Iraq now must accept responsibility for its consequences. Votes have consequences. The consequences in Iraq are well over 30,000 American casualties [casualty: killed and wounded], possibly one million Iraqi deaths, and at least a trillion American tax dollars spent on restructuring (much wasteful and corrupted) and not spent on U.S. schools, hospitals, and infrastructure.

On issues such as this, it is not enough to say, We all make mistakes. One of the remaining candidates cannot even bring herself to say that. Why not, at least, say, "The president misled me"? Given how tragically wrong that vote was, such an admission would be at the very least a signal of humility, responsibility, wisdom, and character.

Consider these two questions when deciding how to vote on Tuesday and beyond: Why did Senator Clinton give George W. Bush the authority to invade Iraq; and why can she not bring herself to admit she was wrong? Regarding the first, she now says that she was only authorizing war as a last resort. Others who voted as she did and now admit error, including Senators Biden, Dodd, and Edwards, do not make that argument. They admit they were wrong. As to the second question, the plausible excuses are few: she still thinks it was right; she thinks the operation was mismanaged; she clings to the hope that this vote and continued support for it will serve her well with conservatives in a general election; she believes it is a symbol of "strength."

Sorting through a great deal of obfuscation, Senator Clinton still seems to cling to the argument that Bush mismanaged the whole project, that it was worth doing but it was done badly. Thus, she seems to accept unilateral invasion as a first resort, even when intelligence, as it was in this case, is less than clear. She seems to be willing to follow policy makers, in this case neocons, who had a publicly announced imperial agenda in the Middle East. And she permits the impression to grow that "triangulation," in matters of war, requires placing protection of political career over protection of the national interest.

Throughout my life I have tried consistently to avoid being judgmental regarding the motives of others. But, like Senator Obama, even on the sidelines, even without access to classified briefings, even under the war drum beat of the right, and even with a compliant mainstream media, I knew both in my mind and deep in my soul that invasion of Iraq was wrong, that it would lead to semi-permanent occupation, that the war would only just begin when Baghdad fell, and that we were pouring blood and treasure into the sand.

"Triangulation" and "centrism" may have led to eight years of a Democratic presidency in the 1990s. But it also blurred the principles of the Democratic party. It led young politicians to believe that the safest course was in some vague middle ground. And, tragically, it led too many Democrats to believe they had to prove their national security credentials by voting for any military misadventure right wing hawks could think up.

This nation needs a president who will question the conventional wisdom, who will exercise skepticism concerning foreign entanglements, who will have the courage to resist pressure from the narrow-minded bellicose right, who will admit to error when major mistakes are made, and who can look farther over the horizon than most of us. Most of all, we need a president who can restore America's honor, respect, and moral authority in the world.

That president is not Senator Clinton. That president is Barack Obama.

Comments

[moevaughn]

Mr. Hart, I hope you read comments to your post.

In the Iraq Resolution, Bush agreed to, quote: "work with the U.N. Security Council to meet the common challenge posed by Iraq."

Mr. Bush did not abide by his own resolution to work with the U.N. to meet the challenge of Iraq and broke his word to our own representatives in Congress and the Senate.
In 3/7/03 the U.N. inspectors reported there was no evidence of a WMD program and requested more time to complete their work. Bush dismissed their report, declaring the U.S. forces were on their way.
Senators who voted for the resolution voted for Bush to work with the U.N. He egregiously did not. It was a binding agreement. He broke it. Stop blaming others for his preemptive war.

[realpolitic]

Iraq ia a metaphor for the demise of the Republican party. Unfortunately, at the expense of much loss of life and treasure.

[Afrogirl]

Your article is amazingly without research. Mr. Obama gave a lukewarm speech about Iraq in 2002. He said he was against the war. He did nothing from that time until he decided to run for President and the war was a big issue. Then he pulled out his old speech and now claims he has always been against the war and his credibility is better than Hillary's because of that one little speech. If his speech was other than speechifying he would have acted - he certainly had the podiums in both the State and U. S. Senate. That is his way isn't it Mr. Hart. To talk with nothing behind the talk. And that's who you are promoting for President?

[SeekTruth]

Hillary was wrong, but it is important to understand why, and understanding can come better by looking at her own explanation for her vote than in third-party psychoanalyzing. She said she voted for the resolution because she believed a President should have that power. Her long-term and governing concerning was for the power of the Presidency--understandable in light of her background, but exactly the wrong concern in a time when excessive centralization and abuse of executive power are at key factors at the root of many of our problems.

[moderationsmuse]

Iraq is not a metaphor. It's a country in the Middle East -- newly liberated from a vicious dictator thanks to American President George Bush.
This distinction demonstrates why we should be very cautious about entrusting American foreign policy to Democrats: because Iraq is not a metaphor; it's a country. It's a country whose people are on the brink of change -- for good or ill. Let's hope and pray, their change will be for democracy and for the good.

[thatvisionthing]

I keep waiting for the clip of Tim Russert interviewing Hillary after the 2002 vote to surface. HE apparently got how serious and potentially tragic that vote was. He kept pushing her on this, on that, on if, but it was like pushing complacent jello. She wouldn't see it his way at all, was glossy about it. Like I said, I wish I could see that again.

[Transcendentobserver]

Sen. Hart: As you should appreciate more than most a vote by a legislator is an existential decision and event, presumably based upon a plethora of factors impacting that vote AT THE TIME. A third of a generation's decision later, whether a vote was "wrong" is an even more complex and totally subjective value judgment. Intervening variables make a value judgment meaningless. One can only judge the correctness existential event by subsequent factors. Sen. Clinton has done so with reasonable objectively by presenting the variables which affected her judgment and explaining the false data on which it was based.

The same subjective query you proffered to Sen. Clinton about her vote in 2002, could be presented to Sen. Obama with the same demand for admission that he was "wrong" to remove his 2002 address in opposition to the invasion from his web site and his contemporaneous 2004 vote to support the war, 3/4ths of the country now agree was wrong. In 2003, however, over 80% of the populace supported the decision.

Fortunately for the nation, absent the campaign mandated distortion of details, either candidate's position on the war and most other issues are interchangable; however your intervening actions in Oklahoma City with the obsolescent Dixiecrat faction of the Democratic Party (admittedly the liberal wing of that faction, however) does little to advance the progressive cause and its hopes for reflection in an Obama presidency. Either candidate would serve the country and the world well.

[superba]

Thanks, Senator Hart. I always enjoy following your reasoning, even in the rare instances when I don't agree. Not to mention the sheer pleasure afforded by your always-elegant prose.

This time, you've hit the nail on the head. Hear, hear!

It seems that all of America is waking up to the promise of Senator Obama. Pretty thrilling results in Maine today!

[todayslies]

Let us review the litany of political "accomplishments" of the Clinton White House:

NAFTA
Health Care "Reform"
Doubling Down on the Drug War
The 1994 GOP takeover of Congress
Welfare "Reform"
Telecommunications "Reform"
Defense Of Marriage Act
Iraq Liberation Act
Monica Lewinsky
Impeachment

This is the legacy of the Clinton Years. This is a legacy of eight years of wasted opportunity, leading to the inevitable collapse of the progressive movement, all while its supposed standard bearers"Bill and Hillary Clinton"escaped from the wreckage unscathed, with vast personal wealth and a Senate career to boot. With only the delay of Bush's 2004 "re-election" to wait through"a fortuitous event for the couple, as it cleared the decks of any incumbent competitors"they had a Restoration awaiting them in 2008.

For more on this and other political issues, please visit my political blog www.todayslies.com!

[cornflower]

She cannot claim that Bush misled them. Any person who read newspapers in the 90s and knew about the UN's weapons inspection and demolition regime could never have believed in 2002 that Saddam Hussein possessed mass quantities of weapons of mass destruction. The assertion was clearly preposterous at the time to any knowledgeable person. Colin Powell has already stated for the record that he himself knew the assertion was false when he made it at the UN. So that won't wash. This factual information is out there on the record although the public seems to keep losing its grip on it. So why did she support the resolution? Others did not, notably Paul Wellstone, whose tragic death soon after helped the collective memory to further lose its grip on reality. I think she did it as a matter of political expediency, the same reason she does most of what she does. Look at what Bill Clinton promised when he ran and compare it to what he accomplished when he ruled. I heard a great statement today that sums it up for me: When Bill Clinton left office, there were fewer Democrats in Congress and in governorships than when he came into office. Where from comes the belief that these people are good for the Democratic party and/or for the US of A?

Vote Obama!

[PaulLoeb]

Excellent piece. Also if you compare Hillary's foreign policy advisors to Obama's, hers overwhelmingly supported the war, and his overwhelmingly opposed it.

See my piece today
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/paul-loeb/hillary-heeds-hawks-how-_b_85853.html

[shades3]

Thank you for reminding us of Ms. Clinton's mis-reading of a call to war as being not what it clearly was.
Had she asked herself exactly what it was that President Bush was asking for, clearly spelled out in the bill she voted for, she would have realized that Bush was demanding a blank cheque.
It was necessary to trust Bush completely to use the totally unrestricted authority being given him as leverage and not to launch an invasion on the flimsiest of evidence and certainly not to defend against an imminent attack of the United States.
And as if that wasn't enough, even after Ms. Clinton knew she had been deceived, she continued to support the lie, after lie, after lie told by the Bush Administration, resulting in death and destruction that cannot be undone.

For those reasons, no matter how much some may feel that it's high time there was a woman in the White House, this is not THAT woman. She has shown herself to be willing to go along to get along, putting her political ambitions ahead of the lives of the soldiers and civilians, which can never be replaced.

[DoninJoisey]

Haven't we had enough of a president that admits no wrong? Why on earth would we want "Bush-lite" with a return to the Clintons?

I prefer integrity to political calculation.

NO THIRD CLINTON TERM.

[NightAdder]

I find it ironic how Hillary supporters and republicans use the same arguments against Obama's stance on the Iraq war. Both groups try to blur the line between being against the war and supporting the troops. Obama clearly was on record against the war since he advocated against it before the senators voted for it. Once Obama got in the Senate he voted to fund the war to support the troops. These are two separate dynamics within the same reckless foreign policy that Obama didn't create. If Obama didn't support war funding, Hillary's supporters (and the republicans) will accuse Obama for not supporting the troops. Hillary and the republicans want to have it both ways so they can control the argument.

[Justtellthetruth]

Were it ONLY the vote on iraq.

She supported war with Iran AND War with Lebanon as well.

The war with Lebanon has been determined by Israel to have been an avoidable disaster, not unlike Iraq for us. No apology from Clinton here either.
She campaigned vociferously for it with the Israeli ambassador at rallys in New York.

She also supports making Jerusalem the undivided capitol of Israel, a view that is far to the right of George Bush and the israeli Prime minister himslelf.

Jimmy Carter compared the settlements to South Africa's apartheid system in his book, Palestine, Peace, Not Apartheid.

Hillary condemned his views. Recently, The Prime Minister of Israel (Olmert) said that if Israel does not give up it's settlements, it will end up like south Africa, essentially in direct agreement with carters assessment.

On the middle east, she is bought and paid for by ultra right wing hawks (WAY to the right of most Jewish Americans and Israelis) who inform ALL of her veiws and decisions.