by Nicholas Beaudrot of Electoral Math
Greg Sargent asks a difficult question—assuming a peacnik "war is not an option" response is unfeasible, what should be the Democratic response on Iran, given that many Democratic Presidential hopefuls will feel the need to be "hawkish"? Sargent's worry is that the hawks will fall into the trap of conditional support for an invasion or even air strikes, giving Bush enough domestic cover to start World War III (and let's be honest, that's what we're talking about). I'm worried about that possibility as well, especially since Iran is in some ways a greater threat than Iraq was in 2002. But other options are available. One effective technique is to make bipartisan support conditional on terms completely unacceptable to one party. Republicans have been playing this game for years, hoping since at least the 1992 campaign that Democrats would support "common ground" in the abortion debate in the form of parental notification and waiting periods. Hillary has recently turned the tables by challenging the pro-life groups to accept contraception education and Emergency Contraception as valid ways to reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies. But back to Iran. Even the need-to-be-hawkish Dems (Bayh, Biden, HRC, et al.), can demand reasonable steps towards bipartisanship from Bush.. Here are some possible endings to the sentence the sentence "I will consider supporting air strikes against Iran if Bush agrees to ...":
- "... fire Donald Rumsfeld and appoint Sam Nunn/Wes Clark/Eric Shinseki/Anthony Zinni as Secretary of Defense. Now."
- "... obtain UN or NATO support for any peacekeeping or humanitarian operations for any Iranian civilians displaced by our bombing. We've seen that he can't keep the peace after the initial attack."
- "... offer a cease-fire to Iran after we destroy half their nuclear development capabilities. If Iran agrees to abandon its weapons ambitions, we will provide inspectors to monitor their energy plants—the same people who stopped Saddam from acquiring WMD."
So there's no real need to panic ... yet.
