Tom Hayden (The Nation): Hawks for Withdrawal

[Jack Rabbit]

From The Nation
Dated Wednesday May 17

Hawks for Withdrawal
By Tom Hayden

Democrats are slowly but surely uniting around a plan for military withdrawal designed by the Center for American Progress, a think tank linked to Clinton-era Democrats and headed by former White House Chief of Staff John Podesta.

Not all the party leaders agree. Senator Hillary Clinton continues to posture as a military hawk. Senator Joe Biden wants to dilute and divide Iraq into three sectarian enclaves. Neither Senator Charles Schumer nor Representative Rahm Emanuel, who are charged with winning November's elections, have a coherent message on Iraq, preferring themes like "corruption" and "incompetence" to a straightforward alternative.

Despite the timidity and paralysis, however, Democrats on the campaign trail increasingly know they must address the war. Polls show that Iraq is dragging down ratings for the President and the Republican Party. Democrats prefer to simply criticize the Administration's handling of Iraq without discussing an exit plan of their own. This Democratic approach worked brilliantly on Social Security, where Bush could find no Democratic divisions to exploit. John Kerry's presidential campaign tried the same approach on Iraq but discovered that Kerry was losing both centrist and progressive voters. Today, the most common concern voters have about the Democratic Party is whether it stands for anything.

Read more.

[bemildred]

1. "prevent an outbreak of isolationism in the United States."

That really puts a finger on the problem. As if minding ones own business was some sort of faux pas.

[Jack Rabbit]

2. Isolationism

When that word is used, it usually conjures up images of America blithely letting the world slip into danger by ignoring it. That may have been as much a cause of World War II as anything else.

There is a lot of territory between that and the Bush's post-Cold War imperialism. Somewhere in that territory can be found a wise and beneficent foreign policy.