Having argued with tedious frequency for the proposition that the United States needs to look for ways to head for the exit doors in Iraq, I'm naturally heartened, in some ways, by a recent uptick in anti-war sentiment among the Democratic Party's leaders. Nevertheless, advocacy of withdrawal within the liberal community has long been bedeviled by a fairly vicious case of what I like to call the "pundit's fallacy" -- assertions that the key to electoral success is for a party or political leader to adopt the writer's policy preferences. In their December 12 issue, for example, the editors of The Nation argue that "Democrats must recognize, as [John] Murtha has, that by putting aside politics and doing what is right for the country they will not only establish their party as the alternative that is needed; they will isolate the Administration and create a space where sensible Republicans can join a new bipartisan drive to get this country's troops out of the Iraq quagmire."
The basis for this proposition is the view that "the public has turned against the war."
It's an admirable sentiment, but it involves a pretty hefty dose of wishful thinking. The public has turned against the war in the sense that stable majorities now, rightly, view the war as a mistake and the administration's selling of it as deceptive. But opinion on forward-looking policy questions remains complicated. As pollster Mark Blumenthal's excellent examination of the available data shows, poll results on these questions are highly influenced by how questions are phrased and alternatives framed. The Iraq debate, in other words, should be winnable by an anti-war party, but it's also losable. These are treacherous waters, and while Democrats shouldn't be cautious about speaking out on the war, they need to be careful in their political strategy.
The distinction is an important one. During the successful Social Security fight, Democrats took a bold stance against privatization and managed to turn initially confused public opinion decisively against the Bush scheme. A plethora of misguided pundits advised the party to adopt a more nuanced view, and their counsels were rightly rejected as likely to merely deepen the confusion and open the door to Republican machinations. But the counter-campaign, while strong and decisive, was disciplined and well-executed. Recent anti-war agitation, by contrast, has looked confused and amateurish.
To revive his political fortunes on the war, Bush has settled on a clear and reasonably effective plan -- frame the debate as a choice between victory and defeat. Hence the White House's latest propaganda document was labeled a "National Strategy for Victory on Iraq," while The Weekly Standard's hackish and absurd blog has labeled the opposition "SurrenderCrats." Liberals need to reject this frame. The American people are tired of the war, but are not prepared to accept defeat by an insurgency that genuinely involves loathsome and evil characters. Nor is there any reason for the frame to be acceptable. Jihadi goals in Iraq are wildly unrealistic irrespective of American policy, and credible cases have been made -- most recently by Nir Rosen in The Atlantic -- that withdrawal is the best hope for stabilizing the country.
Instead, DNC Chair Howard Dean last week blundered right into the White House trap by proclaiming victory unattainable, rather than arguing more sensibly that the administration's definition of victory as something like the indefinite continuation of the war is perverse and wrongheaded.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi has, if anything, been worse. She responded to Bush's new political push by first proclaiming herself a proponent of leaving Iraq as soon as possible, then by saying that most of the caucus agrees with her, and then by saying that the caucus wouldn't be adopting this as its official position. Telling the world that most House Democrats have a position on Iraq that they don't intend to expound and defend in public is bizarre and merely opens the door for Republicans to define their opponents' views any way they choose. Pelosi was trying, one assumes, to accommodate the existence of diverse viewpoints within the party, which is understandable. But at a December 8 press conference, she managed to explain this diversity of views in the most counterproductive way possible, describing the war as "not like an issue such as prescription drugs or Social Security, which are core issues to the Democratic Party." Thus, House Democrats apparently both have a secret plan to lose the war, and don't consider national security to be a topic that should be taken all that seriously anyway.
Imagine, instead, that she'd noted that people disagree about what to do in Iraq largely because -- thanks to a stupendous series of policy errors -- the country now faces an absence of appealing options. She could have noted that while Democrats are allegedly in disarray, they in fact agree on a great deal, most notably the need for the administration to disavow a permanent or open-ended military presence in Iraq. Most of all, she could have noted that Republican unity on Iraq is ephemeral, a purely partisan position in support of a president who steadfastly refuses to define what he's trying to do in a comprehensible way. Instead, through careless statements she and Dean are causing vulnerable Democrats to flee their party leadership.
Since the 2004 election, liberals have expended much energy explaining an opposition party's duty to serve as precisely that, an opposition, offering a real alternative to the governing party's approach. This is all quite right, but it follows that an opposition has a duty to present itself as a credible alternative government with a consistent and clear message. Most of all, Democrats have a responsibility both to themselves and to the country to take the pursuit of political power seriously, and not offer tossed-off blog-style running commentary on the political scene. The politics of national security, like national security itself, are complicated, and can't be managed properly without a serious plan. Pelosi and Dean wouldn't treat a prescription drug bill so carelessly, and, given historic Democratic weakness on questions of war and peace, they ought to redouble, not relax, their efforts to play smart politics on Iraq.
Matthew Yglesias is a Prospect staff writer.
