magazine report

Noble Adventure, or Squalid Dead End?

September 28, 2004

Thursday’s opening debate and its topic — foreign policy — has garnered much speculative ink even though it hasn’t happened yet. Larry Kudlow of the National Review, who fancies himself a seer, has peered into the future and already declared the outcome:

One of the reasons John Kerry is going to lose the foreign-policy debate Thursday night in Coral Gables, Florida, is that he is a pessimist and a defeatist. His recent broad-side attacks on President Bush’s war against terrorism are right out of the Vietnam-era: Blame America. Blame the commander-in-chief. Blame the military. Assume we will lose….

This is World War IV, as Norman Podhoretz recently put it. Bush understands this. Kerry does not. In essence, it’s a vision thing — a key difference that will surface in Thursday’s debate. Bush’s vision is to use American power to promote democracy and freedom in a vital part of the world that has become unimaginably dangerous. Bush’s vision is also one of optimism, of America’s ability to succeed in carrying out a humanitarian operation which will make the world a better place and leave America more safe and secure.

On a somewhat less fervid note, Time magazine’s Romesh Ratnesar, in an article entitled “Can This War be Won?,” writes that “Iraq will be the main — and surely most vital — subject” of the upcoming debate.

However gloomy, the outlook isn’t yet hopeless. The Bush Administration’s prewar vision of turning Iraq into a beachhead of democracy in the Arab world is indeed remote. But for all the rhetorical sniping on the campaign trail, Bush and Kerry agree with the consensus of policymakers and military commanders in Washington and Iraq: a significant reduction in the U.S. presence is impossible until a credible Iraqi government proves it can defend itself against an insurgency that is likely to persist for years. The range of plausible scenarios if the U.S. were to pull out includes an Islamic state that provides sanctuary to terrorists like al-Zarqawi and a civil war that could draw in neighboring countries like Syria and Iran. “We cannot walk away from this one,” says retired Marine Corps General Anthony Zinni, a former head of U.S. forces in the Middle East and a leading critic of the Administration’s handling of Iraq. “It would be a colossal failure if we fail to deliver on this.”

Ratnesar writes: “Whoever wins in November will find that success in Iraq remains out of reach until the U.S. makes headway in accomplishing five key goals.” Those are: Get offensive, train Iraqis, improve intelligence, kick-start reconstruction and hold real elections.

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On the homefront, Joshua Green delivers (subscription required) an in-depth profile of Karl Rove, George Bush’s political guru. Green examines Rove’s campaign tactics dating back nearly 20 years, strategies that have delivered an enviable record of 34 wins and just seven losses. However, he notes:

. . . all but one of his races have been conducted at the state level, and thus have been comparatively insular affairs, unimpeded by the glare of the national media or a troublesome global issue like violence in Iraq – both of which could threaten Rove’s ability to control this race.”

In addition to speaking with Rove’s victors and victims, Green combed through documents to get inside the Republican mastermind’s brain. He unearthed a 1986 memo Rove wrote to his client Bill Clements, a Texas oilman seeking to unseat Democratic incumbent Gov. Mark White. The memo quotes Napoleon: “The whole art of war consists in a well-reasoned and extremely circumspect defensive, followed by rapid and audacious attack.”

That, concludes Green, aptly also sums up the strategy of Karl Rove in 2004.

And, speaking of managing troops, Newsweek‘s Howard Fineman took a break from his apparently relentless campaign to set a new East Coast land speed record for most appearances on the air waves in one day to actually sit down and write something. (Not something original, but at least something):

The contest that most Americans see is on the air, conducted on TV and on the Internet in ads, speeches and the debates, the first of which is this week at the University of Miami. But there is a less visible, just as crucial, battle underway now, too–a meticulously targeted, parking-lot-to-parking-lot struggle to find and motivate a relative handful of voters in Pennsylvania and a dozen other battleground states. The war uses high tech for a prosaically low-tech goal: person-to-person contact. With mainframes and Palm Pilots, data mining and Webcasting, the campaigns aim to generate word-of-mouth buzz as well as lists of voter names. Republicans call it “multilevel marketing”; Democrats, “F2F”–for face to face.

The Bush and Kerry campaigns have different approaches to organizing their foot soldiers, writes Fineman. As for which is more effective? “The ground war — and the election — turn on the answer.”

–Susan Q. Stranahan

Susan Q. Stranahan wrote for CJR.