Author: Hampden Macbeth
Senator Hillary Clinton (D – NY) needs-for the sake of the Democratic Party-to acknowledge in the coming months that she erred in authorizing the Iraq War in the fall of 2002.
During the 2004 Democratic Presidential primaries, the candidates were largely evaluated on the basis of their past actions; specifically, if they had or had not voted to authorize force against Saddam Hussein. Howard Dean charged to the front as he strongly criticized John Kerry and John Edwards for giving the President war powers. Though Dean eventually lost and Kerry prevailed, the internal debate in the party on Iraq has been static since then and threatens to remain so if Clinton does not change the debate by saying her vote was a mistake.
The debate must move on. What matters now is the future: how and when does the U.S. get out of Iraq? Many Americans and even more Democrats rightly want U.S. troops out of a country that is devolving into a civil war and has claimed an ever increasing number of American soldiers who are caught between the sectarian violence. Simply put, they believe the continued presence of the American military in Iraq is having a negligible effect on the course of the civil war, and all it ensures are the deaths of more young Americans; thus the U.S. should withdraw.
Yet the prospects of a post-U.S. Iraq are frightening: a civil war with broader regional implications. Iraq’s Shiites and Sunnis seem determined to employ violence against one another until one emerges the victor or one so tires of war that they are willing to accept minority political status within Iraq. That might take five to ten years. Shiite Iran will likely support Shiites in aid of their sectarian brothers and in its bid to become the regional hegemony. Sunni Saudi Arabia, on the other hand, will likely come into the civil war on the side of Iraq’s Sunnis, if only because they do not want the rise of Iraq’s Shiites to serve as an example to their own small Shiite minority. Iran and Saudi Arabia’s entrance into Iraq’s sectarian violence will only intensify and spread the conflict. The Middle East might spin wildly out of control with troubling implications for the global economy as the violence threatens oil production throughout the region.
And Anbar province might become what Afghanistan was before October 2001: a safe-haven from which terrorists can launch attacks on the U.S.
So how do es the U.S. balance the demand for the removal of its troops with the likely negative consequences of withdrawal? Can the nation get its soldiers out of harm’s way without letting Iraq slip into a full-fledged civil war and undermining its interests both regionally and globally? Can this be done by leaving Baghdad – a lost city if there ever was one, where the U.S. army is in constant peril – and placing a smaller number of troops along the Iraq-Iran border and the Iraq-Saudi Arabia border to reduce the influence of the those countries in the civil war? Can it be done another way? When is the right time to exit Iraq? What is the likely impact of announcing a date for U.S. withdrawal?
While these are not all the relevant questions regarding the future of U.S. involvement in Iraq they are some of them and they are the types of questions that should dominate the discussion over Iraq in the Democratic primaries. The fact that Iraq is the preeminent foreign policy challenge in America today means that we can no longer debate the relative merits of the candidates’ past votes. Instead, the party must select the candidate with the best plan for U.S. withdrawal from Iraq. It may be a candidate that voted for authorization, it may not be. In the end it does not matter so long as he or she can articulate a compelling vision to the American people of a U.S. withdrawal and a post-U.S. Iraq because it will almost surely be the most important issue in the 2008 election.
Until Clinton acknowledges that she erred the debate will not shift towards the future. It will remain stuck in the past. Anti-war party activists will continue to insist that when she references Iraq that she must say she made a mistake. This will ensure that the media narrative on Iraq will remain the conflict between the Senator and the primary voters she is courting, only hindering efforts to change the discussion within the party. If, however, Clinton states that she was wrong in the fall of 2002, much of the party faithful will be satisfied, the media will no longer have a story and thus the debate will then focus on the future of U.S. involvement in Iraq.
So, Sen. Clinton, please just say your vote to authorize force in Iraq was a mistake. It will allow the party and the country to focus on a deadly important issue.
Hampden Macbeth is a senior DWA major. He can be reached at hmacbeth@oxy.edu.
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