No WMDs in Iraq

[Mort from NewYawk]

The issues around the Iraq war are the most significant in this election. The issue of WMD is only part of the larger issue of whether we need a "man of war" running the country (the subtext of the Bush, Clark and Kerry campaigns).

I would break it down like this:

BUSH VOTER
Saddam was bad news. Even if WMD was a ploy, we needed to get in there and get rid of him.

Now we need to stick it out until the Iraqi government is strong and free of foreign influence, even if we pay a significant price in dollars and lives, because this war is a battle in the war on terror.

SWING VOTER MORE LIKELY GOP
Saddam was bad news. Even if WMD was a ploy, we needed to get in there and get rid of him.
Now we need to get out of there, leave the whole mess to the Iraqis, and go after Osama.

SWING VOTER MORE LIKELY DEM
We have a problem with our intelligence services. Bush was misinformed, or used information selectively. If we knew there was no WMD, we shouldn't have gone in there. We shouldn't let Iraq turn into another Vietnam.

I wish this election could be about health, education and the economy, but I'll admit I have a lot of concerns about the safety of the country.

DEM VOTER
The Republican neo-cons, working with the oil companies, trumped up the WMD argument so that they could betray the country into supporting an illegal invasion of a sovereign nation. We should stop killing people over there and allow international efforts to address the legitimate issues in that part of the world.


What we need are some good polls telling us where people are in their views on these issues.

[Mort from NewYawk]

Bush could easily win again with 48% to Kerry at 52% in a two way race - all it would take would be a slightly better precent (about 100,000 votes - not unlikely) in Florida to make up for the absence of Nader.  Nader only mattered in New Hampshire and Florida, and because of population change, NH is now expendable.  Bush could get a slightly worse percent in the liberal Northeast and West Coast, more than making up for the gain in Florida - leading to the same 47.9% nationally, or even less.  And he would still win!  God I love the electoral college.

Regarding the 'reasons for going into Iraq' - most Americans from the states Bush needs to win know the reason was 9/11, not all this 'WMD' nonsense.   All that pointless WMD chatter Powell pushed Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld into was for U.N. consumption, and for the weak-kneed Democrats in the Senate, not for the true believers in the President's base.

Although I agree that Bush would win the electoral college if the popular vote is another draw, I really disagree that Bush could win with a 52-48% popular loss.

Just look at the analysis of OH and MO that Gustaf did on another thread. Both these states vote almost perfectly with the popular vote, and a loss in either could easily spell doom for the Republicans.

As far as WMDs go, among the swing voters all will be forgiven if things continue to go well. The Iraqis are steadily taking over the own policing, their leaders show every inclination to compromise to get a constitution and elected government, and the opposition does not seem to have a huge amount of popular support.

However, if things were to go badly in the heat of the election, and the number killed got into the thousands, I would say that at least 55-60% of likely voters will be open to Democratic anti-war arguments, and WMDs will come up again big time.

Although the GOP base may support the war as part of the larger war on terror, I'm not sure that Americans as a whole are ready to move from the powerful post Vietnam anti-war syndrome to a unilateral crusade against theocracy and for democracy in the Arab world, if it's going to be difficult.

[Mort from NewYawk]

There is no direct connection between 9/11 (that is, Al Qaeda) and Saddam.

However, there is a direct connection between the corrupt, elitist tyrannies and theocracies of the Middle East and the terrorist threat that is springing from militant fundamentalist Islamism.

The Arab "street" opposes it's own governments, and to the extent America supports them, America as well.

America's past support for tyrannies has fueled classic liberal anti-American sentiment, but the present administration has repudiated this support, and has been pushing a country like Saudi Arabia hard to democratize. The present philosophy of our government would definitely support an elected government in Saudi Arabia over the elitist monarchy that exists now.

In places like Iraq (before it's liberation) and Iran, the "street" likewise wants to rid itself of tyranny, whether religious or secular. The Iraqi people as a whole are glad that we intervened, and their leaders have so far proven that they are more interested in furthering compromise than chaos. If this trend continues, Iraq will set an example in the heart of the Middle East of what Arab democracy can look like.

Although there has been an isolationist streak in American politics (until recently a characteristic of the right), most Americans have historically supported intervention abroad to defeat tyranny, if we identify that our interests are at stake.

In the case of the Middle East today, our interests are at stake because some Arab governments are unable or unwilling to grant basic rights and opportunity to their own people, support radical religious education that demonizes America and Israel as scapegoats for their own failures, and support terrorist groups (in the case of Saddam, the rewards he provided to Palestinian suicide bombers are enough to make that case).

We were right in deposing Saddam, because he was an enemy of ours in the global war against terror for all of these reasons. The Iranian government is also an enemy, but intervention there will hopefully not be necessary, since it will eventually be liberalized from within (the reformers are already boycotting elections and organizing protests). Syria, Pakistan, Sudan, Yemen, Egypt and Saudi Arabia are all governments that will eventually be caught up in this liberalizing trend, and our approach to each will be, and is already, different.

I believe most Americans support unilateral intervention in Middle East countries if they see that we plan well, have positive outcomes, and don't get involved in a "quagmire".

So far, the Bush foreign policy team, though not doing everything perfectly, has done a decent job in Iraq. They've learned from the mistakes of Vietnam, and will learn from whatever mistakes we've made in Iraq.

I agree with opebo that picking apart the Bush approach will not get the Democrats anywhere with the broad middle. Even the WMD controversy, and the revelation to some that WMDs were a political justification to begin reconstruction of the Middle East, is not going to upset anyone except the 20% of the country that are confirmed Bush-haters.

[Mort from NewYawk]

Some excerpts from CNN story today:

******************************************
Facing lingering questions about the nature of the prewar threat from Iraq, President Bush on Friday appointed a bipartisan commission to "figure out why" apparent intelligence failures regarding Saddam Hussein's weapons capabilities occurred.

We're also determined to make sure that American intelligence is as accurate as possible for every challenge in the future," Bush said.

The panel members:
• Co-chair: Former Sen. and former Gov. Chuck Robb of Virginia
• Co-chair: former U.S. Court of Appeals Judge Laurence Silberman, a conservative who served in the Nixon and Ford administrations.
• Lloyd Cutler, who served as White House counsel to Presidents Carter and Clinton;
•  Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona;
• Former appellate court judge Pat Wald, a Democrat;
• Rick Levin, president of Yale University, Bush's alma mater; and
• Ret. Adm. Bill Studeman, a former deputy director of the CIA.

The question of Iraq and WMD promises to be an election issue, as Democrats have steadily assailed Bush on the campaign trail. They've also questioned whether a commission appointed solely by the president -- as opposed to some members named by Congress -- would be able to get to the bottom of the matter in a fair manner.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-California, dismissed the commission as "wholly owned by the executive branch."

"To have a commission appointed exclusively by President Bush investigate his administration's intelligence failures in Iraq does not inspire confidence in its independence," Pelosi said in a written statement on Friday.

********************************************

Will this move by the Republicans begin to defuse the issue among swing voters, or does it still have firepower for the Democrats?