Astounding Foreign Policy Naiveté

Actually The Return of History and the End of Dreams, though Dangerous Nation is actually quite good as well.

Obama’s jujitsu on the surge is one of his less endearing choices of late, but the McCain/GOP mix and match timeline on the Anbar Awakening is every bit as absurd (if not more so). The process of co-opting the Sunni leaders began at least five months before the Surge was even announced (and it took another five or so months for the troop increases to actually take place). The program was proving successful before any increase in boots on the ground. The insurgents changed their allegiance because AQI had taken to burning children alive and making life in an already inhospitable place even worse. Apparently even conservative, militant Islamists think Al Qaeda are a bunch of assholes. Did the increased troop numbers work in a symbiotic way with the change to a counterinsurgency strategy? Probably so. Obama should absolutely acknowledge the success of the surge, but to attribute all of the improvements in Iraq to the troop increase does a disservice to the innovative military leaders who (without the support of the Pentagon) created a winning strategy.

They just keep getting better.

First, that stability was brought by the Anbar Awakening in addition to the surge. I don’t think one would have been successful without the other. Simply ignoring the aspects of the success that weren’t supported by you political allies doesn’t make it less true.

Second, performance in interviews and press conferences doesn’t have anything to do with one’s oratorical skill. Oratory is public speaking, most specifically in the formal sense (something Obama clearly excels at). I suggest consulting a dictionary before your next comment.

Third, the cure for ignorance might start with not calling everything that you don’t agree with “socialism”. That suggests an intellectual unseriousness of the highest order. It is foolish of the hard left to scream “Fascism!” everytime conservatives do something they don’t like, and the same applies to the socialism charge. Higher taxes might be a bad thing, but they don’t have a whole hell of a lot to do with whether or not something is socialist and I’m not quite sure what a socialist foreign policy would look like (actually, perhaps a bit like the neoconservatives).

In the end, I don’t really think it much matters what we write here. You’re response will no doubt involve an invocation of something that some liberal somewhere said (most likely accusing them of blind faith, surrender, and socialism) and, because its easier to argue with them than with existing people, you’ll make yourself feel better by screaming for a minute or two.

How exactly were the Democrats supposed to accomplish anything over the last 4 years? For starters, they’ve only controlled Congress for about a year and a half, and, even then, their slim Senate majority allows the Republicans (who have been ruthlessly effective as an obstructionist minority party) to hold up anything they don’t like. Even if they manage to get something through Congress (SCHIP), they still had to deal with Bush’s veto. I’m not saying that the Democratic Congress hasn’t been quite cowardly, just that they weren’t in a particularly strong position to begin with. If they get to 57 or so Senate seats (which seems likely) come next term, then we’ll see how they measure up.

Is it just me or is the whole “party of NO” meme about the most substantively stupid idea out there? Are the Republicans the party of no health care, no veterans benefits, and no peace? Some might argue yes, but really its just a difference of opinion and a difference in priorities. I hate to break it to you, but there aren’t going to be any tax cuts anytime soon. There isn’t a huge appetite for tax cuts at this point. Even if McCain wins, the House and Senate are both going to be held by the Democrats. And, as their plans sit now, Obama’s tax plan provides for more middle and lower income tax cuts than McCain’s does (by their own admission). And now that it seems that McCain is willing to countenance an increase in the payroll tax to shore up Social Security, it seems that the tax issue wont have the salience it did in elections past.

I don’t think I was whining about Republicans standing in anyone’s way. They decided they wanted to cast their lot as a serious opposition party, and the structural characteristics of Congressional rules allow them to exercise that role very effectively. That’s not whining, its a fact. The expansion of the SCHIP program had over 70 percent public approval. It was supported by a majority of Republicans! But the bill’s supporters couldn’t override the veto. I’m not making any argument about the substantive merit of the bill, just that it was immensely popular. The American people get to voice their opinions every other November. They made a clear choice in 2006. They’ll get another chance in a few months. Republicans (including you) can continue to act as though the Democratic congress has somehow failed to accomplish all of their 2006 campaign promises (in an either/or sense, they obviously have failed), but refusing to acknowledge the role played by the opposition shows either hilarious intellectual dishonesty or a profound misunderstanding of the way our government actually works.

I’ll take whatever bet you want on the outcome of the congressional elections. There is precisely zero chance that the GOP takes back either chamber. The White House may be another matter (though I doubt it).

After Russia’s aggressive behavior involving Georgia today, a get-tough policy doesn’t sound so naive.