Sen. John Kerry's call for a withdrawal from Iraq, published last Sunday in the New York Times, is the strongest anti-war stand yet taken by a national Democratic leader. The anti-war movement should strongly demand that other elected officials support Kerry's position, and that of Rep. John Murtha in the House, to show the scale of the public constituency for the politics of peace.
If Kerry, the 2004 nominee, can be isolated in his own party for favoring withdrawal, it will reveal the fatal decline of progressive Democratic politics and perhaps set the stage for the coming presidential primaries, with Kerry either as a conscience or a candidate. The same has happened with Sen. Russ Feingold, a more likely candidate at this point. Feingold's cautious and conditional call for setting a deadline for withdrawal has gone nowhere among Senate Democrats, nor has his resolution censuring the President received much Senate support beyond Tom Harkin and Barbara Boxer.
Feingold has the option of taking his case to the country in the presidential primaries, where his positions will be strongly supported in the early primaries.
Will Kerry, a much more formidable candidate, take the same course? No one can be certain, but the primary winds are blowing in the direction of peace and progressive politics. Sen. Hillary Clinton, the seemingly invincible front-runner, is not likely to emerge from Iowa and New Hampshire unscathed. Her hardline support of the Iraq War is not only out of touch with Democratic voters, but appears to many as chronic opportunism. Unless the war suddenly ends, her credibility will suffer severely in the primaries.
This is why the "Kerry factor" becomes important. As the former nominee, Kerry commands media and public attention. As an anti-war voice, he is in sharp contrast with the silence of the lambs. As a potential presidential contender, he is a credible foil to the centrist hawks and challenges the party leaderhip to make up its mind.
On the other hand, many anti-war Democrats still blame Kerry for vascillating on Iraq in 2004 in the same ways the party leadership does today. Some in the anti-war movement will continue demanding withdrawal "now" instead of by year's end. Others will insist, rightly, on real reconstruction and sovereignty for post-war Iraq, not its transfer to control by the WTO. Still others will watch how Kerry connect the war with domestic issues of jobs, poverty, immigration and racism. The potential of a progressive majority, or center-left, politics is there. Not since Watergate has there been the opportunity. In both crises, the unpopularity of an imperial war led the White House to illegally discredit and spy on its critics, lose credibility with a majority of Americans, and prompt Congress to cut off funding for war.
As a rapidly-evolving situation appears today, the war is not going to end either "now" or in December. Bush continues to reject the advice of many military experts to withdraw at the "request" of our client regime in Baghdad [the so-called "Phillipines option." ]. Kerry's proposal, if amplified by bloggers and independent media, will draw support from voters hungry for withdrawal and still despondent over Bush's 2004 victory. It helps ensure that Iraq will be an issue in politics and the media despite those who prefer denial and avoidance.
Having taken his stand, Kerry must not backtrack in the face of insider pressure. Nor can he immediately expect a friendly welcome from those who expected more in 2004. But there is a broad constituency, after all, who voted for him in 2004 and would do so again. If he stays the course, he can change the American debate and once again in his lifetime play a leading role in a turn toward peace. If he really fights for what he believes, he might - might - become a hero. Those of us in the cheap seats can only wonder, what is there to lose? He should go for it. #