The Empire Pulls and Strikes Back

One of the great unanswerable conundrums of modern American politics can be stated thusly: Where do the Democrats stand on the war on terror? Are they merely against our involvement in Iraq? Do they simply detest George W. Bush with such ferocity that they think we are not in danger – or that there’s nothing we can do – or that it’s our entire fault anyway?

Newsweek’s Jonathan Alter, media pundit and one of the most revered strategists of the Left, acknowledges this incoherence, one which has helped earn approval ratings for congressional Democrats that are worse (if such a thing is possible) than the president’s dwindling percentages. Alter observes:

Politically, the "war on terror" continues to be a useful GOP bumper sticker, whatever John Edwards's objections. Instead of bemoaning this, Democrats need their own bumper sticker—some way of framing their position that commits firmly to withdrawal from Iraq, but doesn't make them look like surrender monkeys.

His suggestion is a “pull and strike” strategy, whereby our troops redeploy themselves from the sectarian fighting, and instead only participate in conflicts in Iraq which involve foreign fighters. In other words, we go back to a more strictly-defined war against Al-Qaeda, just like back in the day of 2002. We don’t technically leave Iraq – and everybody over there can keep killing each other – we simply stop trying to help them create a functional nation, choosing instead to kill the “classic” terrorists.

The argument isn’t without some merit. One of the underreported news stories from Iraq is that many local leaders on both sides of the Sunni/Shia divide have grown tired of the foreign interference in what’s supposed to be a bloody, gruesome civil feud. “These dudes from other countries are mucking up our ability to effectively slaughter one another!” seems to be the Python-esque line of reasoning. The pull and strike plan, by that standard – and assuming the situation on the ground is really that simple – would be a way to make everybody happy, sort of.

But I’m afraid Jon Alter’s semi-sensible proposal underestimates the extent to which the modern Democratic Party has abandoned any defensive foreign policy in favor of the “blame America” model. For every sensible Joe Biden there are several more senators and representatives who believe we should apologize, withdraw, and capitulate, folks who reflexively imagine that we deserve the hostility of Al-Qaeda, that we are imperial, over-aggressive, and wrong by virtue of our basic identity. For them the next terror attack is already Bush’s fault (because they never would have wanted to kill us otherwise, I guess) – and any notion of proactively dealing with genuine threats is illiberal and undignified.