Vox Populi
The message of the 2006 midterm elections couldn't be clearer: Which way to the exit in Iraq?
The people have spoken. Unlike the confused and static-garbled message of most elections, the message of the 2006 midterm voting–as expressed not only at the ballot box but in countless exit polls–was clear: The war in Iraq was a catastrophic mistake, woven from a web of lies and errors, that has distracted us from the real war on terror. We want our politicians to get American troops out of harm's way as quickly as possible–without making things too much worse, if that's doable, but above all get them home and get us out of this mess.
Corruption, stagnant wages and abuses of power all contributed to the tsunami that swept Republicans out and Democrats in. But the bottom line was not Rep. Mark Foley flirting with House pages; it was American men and women dying and being maimed in an overseas morass with no light at the end of the tunnel (to borrow Henry Kissinger's phrase about our last such morass). If not for Iraq, Dennis Hastert–who somehow overlooked warnings about Foley–would still be speaker of the house.
Here in New Mexico, the people's message about Iraq had imperfect messengers at best. A campaign by an experienced opponent, supported by more than bake sales and fueled by outrage over Iraq, might have given Rep. Steve Pearce a scare. In the First District to our north, only a startlingly inept debate performance by Patricia Madrid–who simply looked poleaxed on TV–saved GOP Rep. Heather Wilson, and by the narrowest of margins. Not surprisingly, Democrats Rep. Tom Udall and Sen. Jeff Bingaman, both opponents of the war, easily won re-election.
The people have spoken. Whether the politicians and punditocracy will listen is another question. Wilson's squeak-through will no doubt be used by the Washington establishment as evidence that the public actually supports "staying the course" in Iraq. Ignoring the rest of the results across the country, inside-the-Beltway types like columnist David Broder have already seized on the re-election of the sanctimonious Sen. Joe Lieberman–a fluke made possible by the lack of a serious GOP challenger in a three-way race–as proof that the midterm elections didn't mean what of course they did. The cover of Time magazine proclaimed, "Why the Center Is the New Place to Be," and the Sunday-morning talking heads chant "bipartisan" like a mantra.
But there is no political center to speak of any more–because most GOP moderates were swept away in the voter anger over Iraq. Good, reasonable men like GOP Sen. Lincoln Chaffee of Rhode Island bit the dust simply because they belonged to the party that got us into Iraq. If the newly empowered Democrats fall into the "bipartisan" trap–after six years of bruising partisanship–and simply go along, they'll reap the whirlwind in 2008, too. Of course voters want both parties to work together–to get us out of Iraq.
Yes, the Democrats' sweep starred some moderates on other issues. But to see the midterm results as anything but a repudiation of the current Iraq policy is sticking your head in the Middle East sand. Even Bob Casey, an anti-abortion Democrat elected to the senate from Pennsylvania, campaigned on a condemnation of the Bush administration for having "lied to the American people about how we got into Iraq."
Connecticut Rep. Christopher Shays–a rare Republican survivor in the Northeast, because he turned sharply against the war–understands what the voters were saying. "It was crazy for [GOP candidates] by July or August to say 'stay the course' made sense," Shays said in an NPR post-election interview.
Shays, who favors setting a timeline for withdrawal, went on to say, "We have to be prepared to walk away. The only way we can get the Iraqis to do the heavy lifting is for them to know that we will leave, even prematurely, if they're not willing to do their part."
Won't a US withdrawal lead to chaos and civil war (as if that isn't already what's happening in Iraq)? In his NPR interview, Shays replied, "We'll have a disaster either way."
But there's a difference. One disaster needlessly and pointlessly sacrifices the lives of still more brave American soldiers; the other doesn't.
Even GOP Sen. John Warner of Virginia, hardly a peacenik, returned from a pre-election trip to Iraq with a glum assessment: "I assure you, in two or three months, if this thing hasn't come to fruition and if this level of violence is not under control and this government able to function, I think it's a responsibility of our government internally to determine: Is there a change of course that we should take? And I wouldn't take off the table any option at this time." That time, of course, is now.
Richard A. Clarke, a 30-year veteran of the Pentagon, State Department and the White House and author of Against All Enemies, argues in The New Republic, "Americans tend to think we can achieve almost any goal if we just expend more resources and try a bit harder. That spirit has built the greatest nation in history, but it may be dooming Iraq. . . . Only withdrawal offers a realistic path forward."
Clarke dismisses the "chaos will follow" argument: "The flaw lies not in the concept that chaos will happen, but rather in thinking that chaos will only happen if we withdraw in the near-term. Chaos will almost certainly follow any US withdrawal, whether in 2008 or 2012."
But won't Al Qaeda be emboldened and turn Iraq into a terrorist base if we "cut and run"? "Al Qaeda is already sufficiently emboldened," Clarke bluntly retorts. And of course Iraq has already become a terrorist base, with US troops providing handy targets.
The most tragically misguided argument against withdrawal sooner rather than later is that this would somehow dishonor the sacrifices our soldiers have already made in Iraq. "What is gone is gone," Clarke writes, "and what is left we should conserve, cherish and employ wisely." Who among us would want a son or daughter to be the last–or hundredth to last–to die for a mistake? Far better to honor our soldiers' sacrifices for America by doing what's best for America.
As Carol Shea-Porter, a Democrat who took a House seat in New Hampshire, put it during her campaign, back in May, "Let us honor our veterans this Memorial Day by saying, 'Well done, soldier, and welcome home. America needs you here.'"
The people have spoken. Other than a long-overdue jettisoning of Donald Rumsfeld, however, the president shows little sign of having heard. Last month's bizarre presidential visit to Vietnam and talk of "the lessons of Vietnam" suggests that perhaps President Bush not only skipped out on serving in that war, but missed the news during that awful period.
Maybe the president needs to ask Henry Kissinger about the real lessons of Vietnam. Kissinger, who had been visiting the White House to urge Bush to "hang tough," now acknowledges that our goals in Iraq are unattainable. Or the president could ask British Prime Minister Tony Blair to be as candid as the PM was recently when, in a slip of the tongue, Blair conceded that the Iraq war has been "pretty much of a disaster." Not surprisingly, neoconservative architects of that disaster such as Richard Perle and Kenneth Adelman have begun the fingerpointing over who screwed up their grand scheme.
Or maybe the Iraq Study Group will show the president a way out. Former GOP Secretary of State James Baker, who co-chairs the group with ex-Rep. Lee Hamilton, publicly warned against the war and recently said the administration would have to "admit big mistakes were made."
The new Democratic majority can only do so much to affect foreign policy, however. If the president doesn't budge, the Democrats must loudly and consistently demand a change of direction in Iraq–a direction that points to the exit. They must hold the president and his party accountable.
Looking ahead, Democrats need to spotlight the fact that Arizona Sen. John McCain–the leading GOP candidate for president in 2008–actually wants to send more troops into the Iraq quagmire. That stance is a signal of McCain's deeply held interventionist beliefs that (in light of results) are charitably described by columnist Eugene Robinson as "counterintuitive." Robinson goes on, "By 'counterintuitive,' I mean 'divorced from reality as we know it.' For one thing, the troops that McCain wants to send do not exist–the military is stretched paper-thin as it is. . . . For another, McCain doesn't specify how all these magically conjured reinforcements are supposed to accomplish such a mission."
Here in New Mexico, Democrats might want to start recruiting a candidate who can think on her feet to oppose Heather Wilson, and somebody with fundraising clout to take on Steve Pearce. Pete Domenici's US Senate seat might even be vulnerable, even if he chooses not to retire, to somebody like Albuquerque Mayor Martin Chavez.
Because the people have spoken. And if US troops are still dying in Iraq in November 2008, the people will be furious that the party holding the White House didn't hear them, loud and clear. Then there will be a reckoning that will make the 2006 midterm tsunami look like a ripple in a pond.
David A. Fryxell is editor of Desert Exposure.