THE KAY REPORT CHANGES NOTHING BUT BUSH'S POLL NUMBERS


There is increasing evidence that The Kay Report, despite all White House spinning to the contrary,
has put a significant dent into Bush's poll numbers. The irony of this fact (as noted by Marshall) is that for anyone who had been following this story, it was old news. You don't have to look any farther than Kenneth Pollack (the leading ex-Clintonite proponent of preemptive war to remove Hussein)'s piece in last month's Atlantic, which detailed the extent to which 1) the CIA and the "professional" intelligence agencies overstated Iraq's WMD capacity, and 2) Bush hawks, due to both ideological predilections and cold political calculations overstated the already overstated estimate of Iraq's WMD capacity.



For the opponents of the war, the Kay Report has been manna from heaven. It is used to support their contention that Hussein was never a real threat, but instead "made a villain" by a bloodthirsty White House eager to distract the American people from (take your pick - the failure to capture Bin Laden, the economy, the extremism of Bush's domestic agenda) assorted failures of the administration. This dovish charecterization of the situation is even less accurate in hindsight than the Bushies WMD sales pitch was in foresight.



It can now be said, that despite other failures of the Clinton Administration in the Middle East, its containment policy of sanctions and limited air strikes succesfully disabled Hussein's WMD program. But it had come at a serious cost in terms of Arab and Islamic backlash against the U.S. for perceived harm to Iraqi civilians (caused by Hussein's callous manipulation of the oil-for-food program) and the ongoing military presence in Saudi Arabia. Furthermore, by the end of the Clinton years, that policy was unraveling, due to gathering international opposition to the sanctions. Saddam had cleverly manipulated the oil-for-food program as a means fo currying French and Russian support for lifting sanctions, and were it not for the Bush Administration's militancy on the issue, the sanctions would have been removed. It is here where the much mocked WMD "program related activities" come into play. Hussein had laid the groundwork to jumpstart his WMD program the minute sanctions were removed, and funds from Iraqi oil to do so. It is here where the doves "lot's of bad guys" arguments go astray. Other murderous tyrants did not share with Hussein the proven intent and resources to acquire WMD. (Those that did - the mullahs of Iran and Kim Jong Il of N. Korea - were the other two on the much derided Axis of Evil). Thus, from the point of view of WMD, the war on Iraq was not, as the doves content unnecessary, but rather at most premature.


Of course,like a number of other, more eminent liberal hawks (Friedman, Hitchens, Berman, etc..), my support for the war was never about the imminent threat of WMDs, but based on strategic and moral merits of deposing the Hussein regime and building an Iraqi democracy in its place. The Kay Report does not change that calculation. What does matter crictically however, is the ongoing struggle to build a sustainable Iraqi democracy. It is on this critical fight that it not only too early too tell the success of the Bush Admnistation's project, but even more so the effort itself.


The more partisan liberal hawks (or ex-hawks) like Spencer Ackerman or Joshua Micah Marshall point to the June 30 transfer date as pretext for bailing, and sacrificing the neocon dream of Iraqi Democracy to short-term Rovian political calculus. Despite my skepticism of this administration, I'm not there yet. Bush may be a man of few principles, but he shown every indication the idea of America as freedom's champion in the world is one of those principles. The likely nominee of my own party, John Kerry, does not take the same view of America's role in the world. And as things stand right now, his nomination turns me into something I never imagined I'd become in a presidential election - a swing voter.