DemocracyAction

The New Republic’s Peter Beinart provocative and historically based book “The Good Fight” is a must read for any liberal who needs a refresher on where we have been and some thoughtful ideas as to where we should, or could go. His thesis is creating quite a stir among liberal intellectuals, with the New Republic under his guidance standing out as a liberal hawk. And while Beinart told me face to face that what I call genetic doves may be hard to bring on board, he has the Democratic Party’s interest firmly in heart. His book makes a very good case for why liberals should remain aggressively engaged in policing the world.

The first three chapters summarize the split in the liberal’s movement since the end of World War II. Already, there were two camps: The anti-communist liberals (Truman, Kennedy, Johnson, Scoop Jackson etc.) and the anti-anti-communist liberals (McCarthy, McGovern and most of the students in the street) followed by the split between hawks and doves with Gore in the former group and Mondale in the later. He accurately makes the case that it is this split over foreign policy that has probably undermined the liberal movement most of all, and has contributed most to the substantial weakening of the Democratic Party.

It is a debate that I think must be made and thanks to a belatedly dovish John Kerry appears to be under way in the Democratic Party, albeit reluctantly and without the confidence that the debate will actually help the party and the country. It is a debate I think DemocracyAction members should get involved in if for no other reason than we are a Petri dish of how tolerant dovish liberals might be of such a position.

In my view, had Clinton, who started off a very reluctant warrior despite his Democratic Leadership Council roots, grabbed the country’s center for the Democrats like Tony Blair did in the U.K. we could have had an enduring hawkish liberal majority that no doubt would have survived 9/11 and not have invaded Iraq. But it seemed he cared less for the Democratic Party and more for himself, or was not as good a politician as we give him credit for. It was an opportunity lost, with a stake driven through the heart of a potential liberal comeback by Monica Lewinsky, hanging chads and a new level of viciousness from the right.

Unlike Beinart, I vehemently opposed the Iraqi war. But not because I am a dove. I supported the invasion of Afghanistan and the intervention in both Bosnia and Kosovo. I would support intervention in Darfur and any place on the planet where indiscriminate killing or human rights violation occurs. But there was something very fishy about Iraq and I never trusted Bush’s motives. I also felt that there were many ways to skin that cat and reduce the suffering there including by dropping the sanctions with links to human rights improvements and satisfactory monitoring. I also had no real problem with Clinton’s 1998 bombings of Baghdad and felt the methodical dishing out of punishment by destroying palaces was a good approach for a creep like Saddam.

But I understand that many will not agree with me. Some of us are doves deep to our souls. Our very nature shuns confrontation and resents bullies. I wouldn’t be surprised if this genetic passivity doesn’t encompass 30% of our country’s population and close to a majority of Democrats. But I also recognize that there are genetic hawks too. Hardliners like Dick Cheney, John McCain and Rick Santorum who want nothing to do with carrots and only wield sticks. I would guess that this may also be about 30% of the population and a slight majority of registered Republicans.

Which leaves everyone else. The moderates. Unfortunately for a liberal moderate movement, middle of the road Republicans are hardly represented in Washington. Through the efforts of the likes of Tom DeLay and the Republican Party apparatus, middle of the road Republicans are completely sidelined and only hardliners are getting elected, leaving maybe only a handful of Republican senators to work with and virtually no congressmen. But these so called elected officials are not representative of the people, which leaves a huge opportunity for the Democrats if only the party could reconcile its foreign policy differences and then wage a multiyear campaign to convince moderate Republicans that the Democratic Party is really the one for them.

Of course, I understand the argument that comes from the far left that a pro-war Democratic Party is not for them. But it doesn’t have to be pro-war. Beinart is correct here that Democrats can and must agree on a common foreign policy position that is not ridiculously and dangerously hawkish like Bush’s has been, but is not going to avoid our moral responsibility as the world’s great power to help others who are in need, even if we have to go it alone.

Darfur is the perfect example. Rather than spend exhaustive energy convincing the UN Security Council to take meaningful action in the Sudan, the United States should just go in with any country that wants to join us. When the moral imperative is so great, I believe unilateralism should be our party policy, and I believe it will be hugely successful with the people if it is competently applied like it was under Clinton.

When the circumstances are murkier however, different solutions are called for. Bombing Iran for instance should not be part of the Democrat’s policy. A better approach to this ridiculous standoff over religion, lost face and their desire to have the bomb is to thoroughly engage the Iranians on every level they are willing to go. The same should hold true to Cuba and North Korea. Once every carrot imaginable is rejected, then a stick approach can be used. Or better yet, maybe we beat them with carrots. The patronizing belief that we not only need to be the babysitters of the world as well as the policemen ignores the reality that all leaders of all countries think they are just as right and legitimate as we do and to treat them as anything but legitimate is only counter productive.

To convince the American people of this new approach, it needs to be presented in an overriding philosophical context. It’s not dovish; it’s not cut and run. It’s aggressive engagement. Respectful global leadership. And its action more than words. As Beinart points out, liberals believe that America must continue to earn the respect it once had in order to lead while the current right wing leadership just thinks being American is enough. People will buy rhetoric that we need to maintain our ideals in order to lead if it is said confidently and in a global context. For the Democratic leadership to come out with platitudes that omit any mention of Iraq and our position in the world leaves such a huge gap in the role of government that Republicans are going to be able to run a nuclear powered aircraft carrier right through it and the people are going to see that something is missing.

In summary, I encourage all to read Bienart’s book I believe we need to come to a consensus as a party as to what our country’s foreign policy role should be vis-a-vis dangerous regimes and failed states. Simultaneously, we need to make it possible if not imperative that moderate Republicans unrepresented in Washington will want to become Democrats without triangulating our core beliefs, and new voters will want to join our party, a party that is once again proud to be American