WHAT THE DEMS MUST UNDERSTAND TO CHALLENGE BUSH ON FOREIGN POLICY"


Thomas Friedman has provided a useful service to the Democratic party by setting up the ground rules for what the Dems must understand in order to effectively critique Bush on foreign policy.

Without a serious Democratic critique of the war ? and I define "serious" as one that connects with the gut middle-American feeling that the Islamist threat had to be confronted, but one that lays out a smarter approach than the Bush team's ? Mr. Bush has gotten away with being sloppy and unprepared for postwar Iraq.

...To be successful, Democrats will need a candidate who understands three things...:

First, this notion, put forward by Mr. Dean and Al Gore, that the war in Iraq has diverted us from the real war on "terrorists" is just wrong. There is no war on "terrorism" that does not address the misgovernance and pervasive sense of humiliation in the Muslim world. Sure, Al Qaeda and Saddam pose different threats, Mr. Marshall notes, "but they emerge from the same pathology of widespread repression, economic stagnation and fear of cultural decline." Building a decent Iraq is very much part of the war on terrorism.

Second, sometimes smashing someone in the face is necessary to signal others that they will be held accountable for the intolerance they incubate. Removing the Taliban and Saddam sent that message to every government in the area.

Third, the Iraq war may have created more hatred of the U.S., but it has also triggered a hugely important dialogue among Arabs and Muslims about the necessity of reform.

However, Friedman crosses over into wishful thinking when we he claims that only Dean doesn't get these principles, while "Kerry, Lieberman, Clark and Edwards do." The grimmer reality is that the mainstream Dem opinion is precisely the other way on all three points, and only Lieberman (who barring a miracle comeback in NH seems on his way out of this race) has clearly expressed views that line up with Friedman's principles.

Clark's central critique of Bush's Iraq policy is the very "diversion" nonsense that Lieberman takes Gore & Dean to task for. Kerry, who opposed the 1st Gulf War, is not exactly an ardent supporter of the 2nd principle. And the #1 concern I have about Edwards is precisely that he hasn't said anything that demonstrates he's onboard with these principles either (his brief references to foreign policy in his stump speech suggest otherwise).


It's true that in rejecting Dean for Kerry, the average Dem is making the point that it doesn't object to the use of force per se; but contrary to Friedman's (and my own) hopes this does not signify that they have shifted from opposing Bush's Wilsonian goals to focusing solely on Bush's flawed policies that undermine these goals.