Good arguments vs bad arguments on Bush’s Iraq policy

September 27, 2007

Kevin Drum had a gem of a post yesterday explaining, in a general sense, one of the principal flaws in the debate over Bush’s Iraq policy — opponents of the war aren’t arguing effectively enough.

In a sense, this may seem like a moot point. The Dems’ arguments against Bush’s policy couldn’t be that bad; after all, polls show overwhelming support for the Dems’ approach to changing course. But there’s a catch — a recent NYT poll (.pdf), for example, noted that 65% of Americans respondents want to withdraw either some or all of our troops from Iraq within the next year.

But the next question asked, “What if removing troops meant Iraq would become more of a base of operations for terrorists, then would you still favor removing U.S. troops from Iraq, or not?” The number dropped from 65% to 30%. There’s little doubt the public rejects Bush’s policy, but there’s still at least some anxiety that conservatives might be right about the consequences of withdrawal.

That’s where the quality of the arguments comes into play. Opposition to the war is broad, but it needs to be deep. If it were, Dems probably wouldn’t be so hesitant to cut off funding.

The right has its argument down pat — the status quo may be bad, but the alternative is worse. Our departure would create a vacuum that would be filled by terrorists and plunge the entire Middle East into turmoil. Terrorists would be emboldened, an Islamic caliphate would be established, and civilization would hang in the balance. Scary.

Then there are the Dems’ arguments.

Here’s my list of accurate-but-unpersuasive talking points:

* The surge doesn’t work

* U.S. casualties are too high

* The war is costing too much money

* The entire Bush policy is based on a lie and should have never been launched in the first place

Again, all of these points are true, but they pale in comparison to the apocalypse described by the right when predicting the consequence of withdrawal. It’s what brings that number from 65% to 30%. For those 35%, it doesn’t matter if the war was sold under false pretenses; that was 2003. It doesn’t matter if the surge doesn’t work; find a policy that will. It doesn’t matter the cost in blood and treasure; a global war is at stake.

So, what are the better arguments? Kevin lists several:

* A significant chunk of the insurgency is motivated by opposition to the American occupation. Our presence is actively inflaming the violence, not reducing it.

* The Maliki government will never make any political compromises as long as they know we’re around to prop them up. Leaving is the only way to force them into action.

* We’re arming both sides in a civil war. The longer we stay, the worse the eventual bloodbath will be.

* Our presence in Iraq is al-Qaeda’s greatest recruiting tool. They’re going to keep getting stronger until we leave.

* The real disaster is in Afghanistan and Pakistan. We desperately need to send more troops into that theater.

Inadvertently, Gen. Casey alluded to another yesterday during a congressional hearing.

The Army’s top officer, General George Casey, told Congress yesterday that his branch of the military has been stretched so thin by the war in Iraq that it can not adequately respond to another conflict – one of the strongest warnings yet from a military leader that repeated deployments to war zones in the Middle East have hamstrung the military’s ability to deter future aggression.

In his first appearance as Army chief of staff, Casey told the House Armed Services Committee that the Army is “out of balance” and “the current demand for our forces exceeds the sustainable supply. We are consumed with meeting the demands of the current fight and are unable to provide ready forces as rapidly as necessary for other potential contingencies.”

So, why must we move away from Bush’s policy in Iraq? To achieve our goals and protect our interests, we have to get out of there. Now, someone go tell the Dems.

The following just seems obvious to me.
I am surprised the idea hasn’t been picked up and fleshed out by left-wing intellectuals:

Obviously Iraq doesn’t tolerate invaders.
As long as Americans abound as the primary occupiers they will draw most of the bullets.
Just as soon as America withdraws…
Iraq will turn on the other invaders: Osama the Occupier.
You’ve see what Iraqis can do to “the finest military in the world.”
They are blowing your guys out of their humvees on a daily basis.
Just get out of their way… and watch them shred bin Laden’s ill-trained fools.

This is all obvious.
But then… that this war was a stupid idea was obvious too.

  • I think that I mentioned this in another thread a couple of days ago. It doesn’t matter if your ideas are better if you don’t know how to sell them.

  • Terrorists would not be in Iraq were it not for US invasion and occupation. The majority of the American people want out of Iraq, our civil rights restored, infrastructure rebuilt, health coverage, restoration of our world diplomacy,and a DRAMATIC change in Washington DC. We are sick and tired of a government spying on our own people, lying to us every day, and a gutless Democrat majority continuing to vote for more war.
    The Lieberman-Kyle bill was the final straw. Bush already has the authority to invade Iran, he was given that by the congress on March 13, 2007. This BS bill cheers him on. Instead of impeaching Bush/Cheney, they keep giving them their way….with no research, no reading, they pass these laws for more war, more destruction….they are gutting this country.
    Congress needs to follow the leadership of Dennis Kucinich, stop funding the war, and throw the bush administration out of office! Instead, they blame it on the votes…they don’t need votes, they only need to say no.
    They all have to go; they are destroying our country and everything it ever stood for….they no longer represent us. We have taxation without representation, these people are not upholding and defending the US constitution in any way or form. I have never seen a government work so consistently AGAINST the best interests of the people as I have these last 6+ horrible years of the bush adm.

  • Arguing for withdrawal from Iraq in and of itself will never be enough, no matter how obvious it becomes that invading Iraq was a grotesque mistake. The threat we saw emerge on 9/11 has not gone away, and by many accounts has only gotten worse. People feel on a gut level that we have to take the fight to the enemy, and so Bush gets the benefit of the doubt so long as he appears to be doing something about that.

    If the Dems really want to “outflank Bush to the right” on the War on Terror, as Howard Dean promised in 2004, they need to point out who really is responsible for the rise of Al Qaeda and the attacks on 9/11, and go after Bush for letting them get away with it scot-free.

    The argument is certainly there to be made, if any of them care to make it:

    http://www.asecondlookatthesaudis.com

  • Just argue that the Iraq war is a waste of time. Say, some people used to say that a killer disease could get loose and lay waste to the world’s population. But the fact is, no infectious disease kills close to 100% of the people infected by it, even bubonic plague. So it’s a real scare, a real sensation headline, but the fact is the world population is not going to be wiped out by a killer disease. Same thing with withdrawal from Iraq- it’s a scare headline, but we’re actually doing more to hurt ourselves by staying there now.

  • The issue needs to be presented in this manner:

    “George W. Bush has waged a war of profit in Iraq, diverting the numerical equivalent of 16 combat divisions from a direct confrontation against the enemy who attacked this country on September 11, 2001. To illustrate just what this means, imagine the events of December 7, 1941—and instead of waging war against the Japanese Empire, we decide instead to invade Mexico. Hey—they killed those guys at the Alamo, after all. That makes them a scary thing!

    In waging his war against Iraq, George W. Bush has syphoned billions of dollars’ worth of war funding from the fight against our real enemies who hide in the hills of Afghanistan and the mountains of Pakistan. Further billions of dollars’ worth of military ordnance—from bullets, to tanks and artillery pieces, to planes, assault helicopters, and bombs—sit idly in Iraq, collecting dust, when they could be deployed directly against our real enemies in the Afghan theater.

    George W. Bush—who is about as credible as a war president as he is a cowboy (he’s terrified of horses, don’t you know) is the political equivalent of Adolf Hitler. Neither one were equipped with the capability of successfully waging military campaigns—and both are prima facie reasons as to why politicians must not be allowed to conduct the course of war.

    Put the generals, the troops, and the equipment where they belong; where they are needed; where the true enemy is. Give them the materiel, support, and supply necessary to defeat the true enemy—and then let them do what they do best.

    Let them wage war, instead of babysitting profiteers and mercenaries.

  • We have been paralyzed by the spectre of terrorism since 9/11, and rational discourse will not return to this country until someone has the guts to expose this bogeyman for the relatively minor threat it truly is. Ordinary crime dwarfs the problem of terrorism in comparison, but like the story of the emperor’s new clothes, nobody dares to talk about it.

    In 2006, there were 17,000 murders in the United States, 1.4 million violent crimes, 10 million property crimes, 90,000 rapes, 450,000 robberies and 860,000 assaults. And yet what are we terrified of? The once in a decade attack that at most will kill 2% of the number of people murdered over the same period. And it won’t rob any banks or rape any women or steal any of the 2 million cars stolen annually.

    That’s ridiculous. At least during the cold war the soviets had the capacity to destroy us utterly, and there was no defense against it except mutual annihilation. And yet we managed to live with the threat for forty years and to go on about our lives without freaking out in an epidemic of national hysteria and paranoia as we have over 9/11. And we didn’t attack Mexico or Canada or Peru or some other country that had nothing to do with the USSR threat.

    What in God’s name has happened to this country? I just don’t get it.

  • I still believe that if we were getting somewhere in Iraq the public would support the effort. I don’t buy the conventional “wisdom” that says Americans are fickle or get bored easily or won’t sacrifice lives for a worthwhile cause. They will. The problem is that we aren’t getting anything in return for our investment in lives or dollars — and there’s no indication that will change.

    Having been lied to from the start, witnessed Bush’s denial ever since, and realizing that he has no plan to get out, I think Americans have concluded it was a horrendous idea from the start that had no chance of succeeding. (Duh!) But again, if things were to somehow turn around, I think we’d see support increase quite rapidly. Hell, I would probably support the effort just to recoup something from this fiasco.

    So I wonder if this too isn’t on the minds of some Dems in Congress — if we go out too far on this limb, and things turn around, we’re screwed. If Bush would level with them, that’d be one thing but he doesn’t. So whatever stand they take they’re doing so knowing there’s information that they don’t have. It’s a lousy situation all the way around.

    (Opinions expressed above are subject to change and totally unsubstantiated.)

  • Nice rundown here. There’s one flaw: the underlying purpose of the occupation remains obscure.

    The right may have its argument down pat, but that doesn’t mean it’s being up front about its purpose. Their argument and their intentions are not necessarily the same. I’ve no doubt the right fears and abhors terrorists as much as anyone, but they are also using terrorists as an excuse to stay in Iraq for purposes other than their stated arguments, namely the establishment of a Christofascist, oil-draining dominion in the Middle East. Their real — unspoken — purpose, therefore, has less to do with national security and Iraqi wellbeing than it has with brute geopolitical expansion.

    If that is the case, then it’s fair to argue that the left is more genuinely concerned with security and the threat of terrorism than the right. Which leads to the difficult question of whether Islam, like Christianity, is inherently iconoclastic and expansionist in its ethos and doctrine. History responds with a resounding “Yes”. So, Islamic extremism has to be feared by non-Muslims as much as Christian extremism has to be fear by non-Christians.

    This is the underlying nature of the predicament and it is not good news for glib debates and snap decisions. The real threat is not sporadic terrorist outrages, but the ongoing disposition of cultures driven by a proselytizing religious zeal which regards non-believers as objects of potential conquest. This is not something that will go away overnight with an up-or-down vote in congress. It is a chronic malady that will persist until a fully effective mechanism of international conflict-resolution has evolved.

    However, as Kevin says of his gem points:

    These aren’t nuanced arguments. If you were writing a 5,000-word piece for Foreign Affairs you’d hedge them until they were barely recognizable. But in the hurly-burly arena of blogs and op-eds and TV shoutfests, this is what it takes to drive public opinion.

  • * Our presence in Iraq is al-Qaeda’s greatest recruiting tool. They’re going to keep getting stronger until we leave.

    * The real disaster is in Afghanistan and Pakistan. We desperately need to send more troops into that theater.

    So if we steep up pressure in Afganistan and Pakistan (with more troops), that won’t also be a recruiting tool for al-Qaeda?? Come on now…

  • “So if we steep up pressure in Afganistan and Pakistan (with more troops), that won’t also be a recruiting tool for al-Qaeda?? — JRS Jr

    Going after al-Q is not going to encourage recruitment; most likely it’d discourage it. Unless, of course, we were to overthrow the governments of both countries along the way, set up permanent bases and unleash 2 civil wars.

  • What has happened to this country is a small group of wealthy loudmouths lied to us and preyed on our values like they were their values while they continued to lie to us, got into power with a full court press of lying and stealing(no one believed they would actually steal and corrupt our elections), and now they continue to use our own laws against us by putting their own in positions to referee the game and gaining more power to corrupt and act without any oversight. They made it to where tons of bullshit fell on us in a power blitz all at once to where our only way of dealing with them or stopping them was gonna’ take a social/political revolution. They did it by spreading fear and panic and manipulating 9/11 for all it was worth. No one was prepared to stand up and take them all on, yeah stand up against this issue or that person, but the crap was coming from all directions at once in avalanches of abundance to the point that it was totally overwhelming. They had too many players on the field and were playing without rules but had rules for everyone else. Everywhere you turned and from all directions you had to be willing to shoot as hard and as fast as possible. Good intentions were merely distractions. It takes a massive response to deal with and more rains down each day.

    This makes Pelosi one of the biggest enemies to the coalition for democracy that has now formed. Impeach and pull the funding is the only method that will achieve any results, yet the majority of dems in congress led by Pelosi are just trying to survive till the next election thinking a new president and more of a majority in the house and senate will save them. Listen to them talk and you will see they are at a point where they can barely cope with it all and so afraid to make a mistake that they have become frozen from doing what is necessary to halt this slow incremental destruction of our democracy. Pull the funding and impeach is the last defense we have. Pelosi and Reid can make this happen but they wait and do nothing. And so it goes on.

    Everyday I live in fear of my president…of what he might do next

  • We have to stop breeding terrorists there, so we won’t have to fight them here.

    Argument over.

    Now, what are the chances of getting the Democrats to lock-step on this message, all at the same time, so that it’ll actually be effective?

    Bah, nevermind.

  • Another point, or two, against the war. How much do you like to see the numbers on the gas pump whirl? Just prior to invading Iraq, the price of a barrel of oil was in the mid $30’s. It closed over $80 the other day. Bush says iraq has to adopt a plan to share the oil revenue with each other and then his family friend signs a deal with the Kurds. He expresses surprise and vows to find out the details. Uh, ever heard of this thing called a telephone? You know this guy! Think you could give him a call? Greenspan says in his book the war was about oil, then backpedals enough to go from Albany to Boise. And, who can forget Wolfie telling us that the oil in Iraq will pay for the war. Wolfie, it’s been 5 years, can the check really be lost in the mail? Finally, Darth. Must be losing your shirt on that Haliburtin Blind trust, right? Think invading Iran will boost your nest egg?
    Wanted to puke yesterday when watching Sen. Cornyn telling the nation that SCHIP was too expensive and the folks in his district are telling him we’re spending too much money. I’d bet your farm that he’ll vote to give Bush the $190B when that comes up for a vote. I believe the operative word here is HYPOCRITE!

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