One would like to believe that the two Democratic contenders are significantly different, especially on Iraq and Iran. But are they?
Clinton the other day said that if Iran launched an attack on Israel while she was President, she would order Iran "obliterated." (Her term.) There was not even a mention that Israel has demonstrated it's perfectly capable of defending itself. Or that committing genocide on the Iranian population would inflame the world and place America in the war-crimes dock in The Hague.
Obama similary has rattled the sabers, saying he would keep the "military option" on the table to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. He's been accused of not being "forceful" enough, and, by assuming the macho stance, perhaps Obama hopes to defuse that accusation. Maybe that's why he's supporting the promotion of Gen. Petraeus, the architect of the "surge" in Iraq, to be head of Central Command.
But regardless of political or personal motivations here, in all three candidates what's clearly on exhibit is an unstated but underlying belief that America's superpower status entitles it -- nea, requires it -- to make decisions of peace and war for other countries and regions of the world.
That's the rationale the neo-cons used for attacking and occupying Iraq in the first place, which Bush bought into without hesitation, and it appears, sub rosa, to still be active in our strange political dance in 2008.
DIFFERENCES ON IRAQ OCCUPATION
On Iraq, the three candidates are a bit more distinct in their approaches. McCain focuses only on the military aspects of the "surge," which he sees as a great success even though the required and promised political-reconciliation component of the surge isn't happening. McCain seems determined to keep U.S. troops in that country for as long as it takes to fashion a strong, capable, American-friendly government and society.
If it takes decades, a hundred years, a thousand (yes, he threw that one in, too), that's OK with McCain. He keeps comparing the Iraq situation to Germany and South Korea, where the U.S. has maintained a troop presence for more than half a century, conveniently ignoring that there was and is no raging sectarian war in those countries and no nationalist insurgency trying to throw out an occupying American force.
In McCain's (and Bush's) view, America has a region to tame, after all, and that requires that U.S. troops be on hand to help shape the Greater Middle East to our specifications. Unspoken is another reason: Using Iraq as a staging area, American power can help "protect" and control the increasingly-valuable oil flowing in the region that is so desperately needed and desired by the West.
Clinton has said she would have her military advisors draw up plans for an orderly withdrawal of American combat troops and begin that re-deployment, brigage by brigade, within 60 days of her assuming office. Obama has said he aims to have all U.S. combat troops out of Iraq within 16 months.
But both Clinton and Obama approve keeping an unspecified number of U.S. troops in Iraq for an unspecified time -- to help train the Iraqi police and army, to battle the forces of "al-Qaida in Iraq," and to be right there in case the situation were to suddenly deteriorate. (And how could it not if U.S. military forces are still on the premises?) Again, these are arguments that demonstrate the underlying soft-imperialism desires undergirding American exceptionalism.
OBAMA/CLINTON SLUGFEST
When you two wrote asking about our "crazy" politics, you made reference to the verbal boxing match between the two battling Democrats while the old warrior McCain is out there campaigning for the presidency.
My co-editor/colleague Ernest Partridge has summed up Senator Clinton's behavior better than I could in his essay "The Monkey Trap, and Hillary Clinton's Blind Rush to Defeat." ( www.crisispapers.org/essays8p/monkey.htm ) Short version: Clinton has no chance to win the Democratic nomination by fighting fairly; her only hope is to destroy Obama by whatever means necessary. Partridge writes:
>> "So if Clinton is to be nominated, she must overturn rules that she has agreed to, persuade most of the super-delegates to ignore the will of the voters and caucus participants, and to accomplish all this she must diminish Obama's stature through negative campaigning. Because such tactics also devastate the public opinion of her (not very high to begin with), those same tactics employed to gain the nomination will almost certainly deprive her of the presidency in the general election.
Bernard Weiner, Ph.D. in government & international relations, has taught at universities in California and Washington, worked for two decades as a writer-editor at the San Francisco Chronicle, and currently serves as co-editor of The Crisis Papers (www.crisispapers.org).
