I can’t think of a more stark contrast between
the possible directions that the
mixed-up, shook-up Republican Party can take on foreign policy
than the one demonstrated over the last few days in the opinion
pages of the Wall Street Journal. We spoke in this space
earlier this week about
Dick & Liz Cheney’s reaction to the deteriorating situation
in Iraq, but let’s quote from the piece at more length:
Iraq is at risk of falling to a radical Islamic terror group and
Mr. Obama is talking climate change. Terrorists take control of
more territory and resources than ever before in history, and he
goes golfing. He seems blithely unaware, or indifferent to the
fact, that a resurgent al Qaeda presents a clear and present danger
to the United States of America.When Mr. Obama and his team came into office in 2009, al Qaeda
in Iraq had been largely defeated, thanks primarily to the heroic
efforts of U.S. armed forces during the surge. Mr. Obama had only
to negotiate an agreement to leave behind some residual American
forces, training and intelligence capabilities to help secure the
peace. Instead, he abandoned Iraq and we are watching American
defeat snatched from the jaws of victory.
Italics
mine, for WTF? And yes, Dick Cheney just criticized an American
president for
engaging in recreational activities while bad things happen in the
Middle East, the last refuge of the political hack. And note,
too, the selective end points on the presence and status of “al
Qaeda in Iraq,” a force that just wasn’t a factor in geopolitics
before something very large and selective happened on Cheney’s
watch in the spring of 2003.
Which is a point made in a WSJ
op-ed today by longtime Cheney-family antagonist Sen. Rand Paul
(R-Kentucky). Excerpt:
Today the Middle East is less stable than in 2003. The Iraq war
strengthened Iran’s influence in Iraq and throughout the Middle
East. […]Saying the mess in Iraq is President Obama’s fault ignores what
President Bush did wrong. Saying it is President Bush’s
fault is to ignore all the horrible foreign policy decisions in
Syria, Libya, Egypt and elsewhere under President Obama, many of
which may have contributed to the current crisis in Iraq. For
former Bush officials to blame President Obama or for Democrats to
blame President Bush only serves as a reminder that both sides
continue to get foreign policy wrong. We need a new approach, one
that emulates Reagan’s policies, puts America first, seeks peace,
faces war reluctantly, and when necessary acts fully and
decisively.
The contrast is striking here not just in policy
content but in tone. The Cheneys snarl about “appeasing our
enemies,” “abandoning our allies,” and “apologizing for our great
nation,” as if it was the 2004 Republican
National Convention all over again. Paul, with the exception of
one somewhat intemperate paragraph asking “Why should we listen to
them again?”, approaches the question with an assumption of
personal and national humility, a sense that American knowledge of
(and power to shape) fluid events in the Middle East has
limitations, as does American appetite for making the kind of
commitments that the Cheneys of the world constantly seek:
Those who say we must re-engage in Iraq are also forgetting an
important part of the Weinberger Doctrine: “U.S. troops should not
be committed to battle without a ‘reasonable assurance’ of the
support of U.S. public opinion and Congress.” To attempt to
transform Iraq into something more amenable to our interests would
likely require another decade of U.S. presence and perhaps another
4,000 American lives—a generational commitment that few Americans
would be willing to make.
This is a pretty clearly defined fork in the road for GOP
foreign policy. As Rand Paul
put it to me last August, when the elective war under debate
was Syria, “We’re losing, on a good day, 70/30 among the
Republicans [in the Senate]. But we win every day among the
grassroots, probably 80/20, 90/10.” How—if at all—those numbers
converge will tell us much about the fortunes of the Republican
Party, and of the country.
A partial chronology from the voluminous
Cheney vs. Paul file:
* National
Security Republicans Go Gunning for Senate Front-Runner Rand
Paul (March 17, 2010)
* Dick
Cheney vs. Rand Paul (March 24, 2010)
*
Why Rand Paul Is Backing the Sponsor of the Workplace Fairness Act
Over Liz Cheney (July 15, 2013)
*
Liz Cheney’s Failed Campaign Highlights the Declining Influence of
GOP Hawks (January 6, 2014)
And below the fold, watch some discussion of the Iraq situation
on Monday night’s episode of The Independents.
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