From the WSJ Opinion Archives

by JAMES TARANTO
Monday, February 5, 2007 4:00 P.M. EST

Indecision 2008
Last Monday we faulted Sen. Hillary Clinton for demanding that President Bush "extricate" America from Iraq before he leaves office, and for saying, of the president's view that troops will have to remain there into his successor's (i.e., her) term, "I really resent it." We wrote, "If withdrawing from Iraq is in America's interests, why doesn't Mrs. Clinton--who by the way voted for the war--simply urge President Bush to do so on that ground, or promise to do so herself if elected?"

By the end of the week she had done as we suggested--or so the headlines seemed to indicate. "Clinton Promises to End War if Elected" was the title of an Associated Press dispatch Friday afternoon, which reported that Mrs. Clinton told a meeting of the Democratic National Committee, "If we in Congress don't end this war before January 2009, as president, I will."

Well, now, that sounds definitive. Yet on Friday's "Lou Dobbs Tonight," Democratic operative Robert Zimmerman (who, according to TPMCafe.com, had just been "bagged" by Mrs. Clinton as a fund-raiser) was furiously backtracking, in an exchange involving your humble columnist (we've made a few corrections to the CNN transcript):

Dobbs: And Sen. Clinton told you today and all those other folks sitting there, she's out of Iraq immediately if she's elected president in 2008.

Zimmerman: Well, she laid out a plan, and she put some ideas before the table that were received very well. And I applaud her initiative for doing so. Obviously, she's not pulling everyone out Jan. 20, and that's--

Dobbs: Good grief.

Zimmerman: And that's not the full statement of what she said.

Dobbs: Robert, we're going to have to pull you out of Washington. You're starting to sound like you live there, man.

Zimmerman: No, but I think, truly, you can't--you know, as Kenneth Pollack pointed out from Brookings, there aren't solutions. There are just very tough choices.

Dobbs: Let me turn to James Taranto. Now, what is the solution from--in your lights, to Iraq? What is the solution?

Taranto: Well, I don't know. I think whatever it is, it's going to be long and hard. I'm just not a military strategist. I don't--I don't feel qualified to answer that question.

I will say on Mrs. Clinton, though, I think that Robert is actually right, at least in terms of predicting what she's going to do. If she becomes president in 2009 and we are still in Iraq, as I suspect we will be, she's not going to pull out. She's not going to keep this promise. She's telling this to rally the base.

Zimmerman: I didn't say that, James. I have every belief that she will keep her promise. And she's been remarkably consistent on Iraq, where others have wavered. Because the solution is not going to be military, it's going to be a political solution.

We had not seen or read the speech when we appeared on the Dobbs show, but we looked it up later and found that (1) Zimmerman's description of it was substantially accurate, and (2) Mrs. Clinton's promise to withdraw upon inauguration was even emptier than we had thought. Here's what she said:

Now, I know very well that we're going to be debating, starting this week in the Senate, a resolution of disapproval of this president's ill-conceived plan to escalate our involvement in Iraq. Now, there are many people--there are many people who wish we could do more, but let me say that if we can get a large bipartisan vote to disapprove this president's plan for escalation, that will be the first time that we will have said "no" to President Bush and begin to reverse his policies.

Now, I want to go further. I propose capping the troop levels. I want to make it very clear that we need to threaten the Iraqi government, that we're going to take money away from their troops, not our troops who still lack body armor and armored vehicles; that we're going to send a clear message--that we are finished with their empty promises and with this president's blank check.

And let me add one other thing, and I want to be very clear about this. If I had been president in October of 2002, I would not have started this war. I would not--and if in Congress, if we in Congress, working as hard as we can to get the 60 votes you need to do anything in the Senate--believe me, I understand the frustration and the outrage, you have to have 60 votes to cap troops, to limit funding, to do anything.

If we in Congress don't end this war before January 2009, as president, I will.

And I expect to be busy in the White House in January 2009, because once and for all, we are going to provide quality, affordable, universal health-care coverage to every single American.

So she's going to end the war and give health insurance to everyone--all in the last 11 days of January! Okey dokey, artichokey.

The most telling line in Mrs. Clinton's speech is that counterfactual conditional: "If I had been president in October of 2002, I would not have started this war." This is quite an astonishing statement, seeing as how in October 2002 Mrs. Clinton voted for the war. And yet when you stop and think about it, the statement is not intuitively false. If you can imagine Mrs. Clinton as president in October 2002, you probably can imagine her not starting the Iraq war.

Whether or not you think the war was a good idea, it was indisputably the product of President Bush's leadership. He rallied the country behind it, so that it commanded something like 70% support in opinion polls. Congress's support was similarly strong, with 69% of the House and 77% of the Senate (including not just Mrs. Clinton but also fellow Democratic presidential candidates John Edwards, Joe Biden and Chris Dodd, along with John Kerry) voting in favor of the war.

Mrs. Clinton now says that if she were president in 2002, she would not have led the country to war. This amounts to an acknowledgment that her vote in favor of the war was not an act of leadership--that she was a follower. Was she following the president? This president? Obviously not. President Bush led the public to support the war, and Sen. Clinton followed the public. Now that public opinion has turned against the president and the war, so has Mrs. Clinton.

How does Mrs. Clinton deal with a problem about which public opinion has not yet gelled? On Thursday she spoke to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, and blogress Heather Robinson captured this choice quote:

I have advocated engagement with our enemies and Israel's enemies because I want to understand better what we can do to defeat those who . . . are aiming their weapons at us. . . . This is a worthy debate. . . . There are many, including our president, who reject any engagement with Iran and Syria. I believe that is a good-faith position to take, but I'm not sure it's the smart strategy that'll take us to the goal we share.

What do I mean by engagement or some kind of process? I'm not sure anything positive would come out of it . . . but there are a number of factors that argue for doing what I'm suggesting.

Says Robinson: "And what was it she was suggesting, exactly? Well, she never said."

So on Iraq, Mrs. Clinton stands resolutely on the side of public opinion, whichever side that may be in any given year. On Iran, about which public opinion is unformed, she is maddeningly noncommittal. This is fine for a senator, who merely casts one vote among 100. But the president--especially in times of international peril--needs to be able to make decisions in the national interest. Sometimes that means shaping public opinion, as President Bush did when he persuaded the public and Congress to support the war in Iraq. Sometimes it means defying public opinion, as Bush has done lately by resisting pressure to flee.

Were these decisions bad ones? History will judge, but at the moment most Americans seem to think so. Mrs. Clinton is seeking to become President Bush's successor by countering his dangerous boldness with extreme caution. She is presenting herself as the candidate who won't make bad decisions because she won't make decisions--who won't lead us astray because she will not lead.

But an excess of caution is itself a form of recklessness. Someone who won't make decisions won't make good or necessary decisions either. Therein lies the peril of a Hillary Clinton presidency.

Oh Grow Up!

  • "The president gets on my nerves. The war gets on my nerves. I don't think it's affected our lives that much, 'cause I'm too young to drive, I'm too young to vote. But killing and death in general, I don't know, it bothers me mentally."--Colin Wilkey, 15, a freshman at Hopkinton High School, quoted in the "Teen Life" feature of the Concord (N.H.) Monitor, Feb. 5

  • "I think it's the height of irresponsibility and I really resent it--this was his decision to go to war, he went with an ill-conceived plan, an incompetently executed strategy, and we should expect him to extricate our country from this before he leaves office."--Hillary Clinton, 59, a sophomore in the U.S. Senate, quoted in the "Politics" section of the New York Times, Jan. 28

Called for Blocking
"Sen. John W. Warner will join his fellow Republicans in voting Monday to block the resolution he wrote rebuking President Bush's Iraq war policy," the Washington Times reported Saturday:

"Senator Warner supports the Senate Republican leadership's effort to establish a free and open debate on Iraq on the Senate floor, including possible amendments," a spokesman for the Virginia Republican said yesterday afternoon.

Thus Warner planned to join all 48 of his Republican colleagues in voting against "cloture" on the resolution; 60 pro-cloture votes are required to end a filibuster.

The New York Times headlines this story "Republicans Plan to Block Iraq Debate." That is a technically accurate description of the vote against cloture, but since the Republicans' stated intention is to press majority Democrats into permitting a more open debate, the Times headline is somewhat slanted. Further, we don't recall the paper using the "block debate" formulation back when the Democrats were filibustering judicial nominations.

'We Don't Deserve a State'
This column has not been paying much attention to the civil war raging among Palestinian Arabs, because it is one of those conflicts in which we can't really root for either side to win. But it has been both a humanitarian and political disaster for the the Palestinians, as the Jerusalem Post's Khaled Abu Toameh reports:

"Everyone here is disgusted by what's happening in the Gaza Strip," said Shireen Atiyeh, a 30-year-old mother of three working in one of the Palestinian Authority ministries. "We are telling the world that we don't deserve a state because we are murdering each other and destroying our universities, colleges, mosques and hospitals. Today I'm ashamed to say that I'm a Palestinian."

Ayman Abu Khalaf, a 40-year-old businessman, said he was seriously considering moving with his family to Jordan because of the growing state of anarchy and lawlessness in the PA territories.

"The situation is very dangerous and many people are afraid to leave their homes," he said. "I'm very worried about the safety of my children. There are many armed gangs and everyone is afraid. If the situation does not improve, I will take my family and go to Jordan. This is not the Palestine we want to live in."

The New York Times reports that Palestinian intellectuals agree with Shireen Atiyeh that the fighting jeopardizes their ambitions of nationhood:

"This fighting affects everyone's morale," said Daoud Kuttab, a Palestinian analyst who teaches at Al Quds University here. "We always felt we had this one big asset, our social unity as Palestinians, but to see it shredding, with lives being shed without much concern, is horrible. We've lost a lot of sensitivity to these deaths, to those killed by the Israelis and ourselves." . . .

"What is happening now is damaging our reputation and our standing with Arab public opinion and with Arab officials," said Mkhaimar Abusada, a political scientist at Al Azhar University in Gaza. "My feeling is that Arab support for the Palestinians is beginning to evaporate. Arabs are looking at us as fighting ourselves now, not the Israeli occupation, and Arab officials are saying that we're not very serious about establishing a state."

But the Associated Press reports Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has a sunnier outlook:

More than 100 Palestinians have been killed in internal violence since Hamas won parliamentary elections last year and formed a Cabinet.

Despite that violence, "there's simply no reason to avoid the subject of how we get to a Palestinian state," Rice said after a meeting at the State Department with foreign ministers from Russia, the European Union and the United Nations.

We'd have to say that the Palestinians have a more realistic view of the situation than the U.S. secretary of state does.

All Iraq All the Time
Here's the lead paragraph of an equine obituary from Reuters: "For some Americans, weary of war in Iraq and uncertain about the future, the race horse Barbaro's fight for life was a welcome tale of hope in the face of adversity."

But this morning's New York Times brings us what will probably be the all-time classic in the genre of gratuitous Iraq references. We won't even bother quoting from the story; the headline says it all: "Super Bowl Ads of Cartoonish Violence, Perhaps Reflecting Toll of War."

Say What?
"Super Bowl Becomes Soul Bowl as Black Coaches Triumph"--headline, Financial Times, Feb. 2

What Will Nuts Do Without Experts?
"Elizabeth Tashjian, 94, an Expert on Nuts, Dies"--headline, New York Times, Feb. 4

News You Can Use

  • "How Should You Cope With the Cold? Stay Inside"--headline, Chicago Sun-Times, Feb. 5

  • "Oils in Bath Products May Enlarge Boys' Breasts"--headline, MSNBC.com, Jan. 31

Bottom Story of the Day
"A Presidential Also-Ran, Kerry Adjusts to What Passes for a Normal Life in the Senate"--headline, New York Times, Feb. 5

Thanks, but No Thanks
Today's Concord Monitor is proving a particularly rich vein for material. A letter to the editor from Jim Davies of Newbury, N.H., explains how he can "oppose the war but support the troops":

I support the troops, in that I wish each of them well as a self-owning human being, yet I oppose the war. Here's how I do what you said was impossible.

Every single American in uniform joined his or her unit voluntarily. All therefore contracted to submit themselves to government orders for a specified period in exchange for pay and benefits provided by money confiscated under threat of force from friends and neighbors known as "taxpayers"; and in the full knowledge that those orders might include commands to go and kill human beings they had never met. . . .

Like any thinking person, I oppose this and every other war. Do I, though, support those who prostituted their morality for a share of the loot stolen from their neighbors? Yes, certainly. I support giving each the opportunity to correct that gross error and resign immediately from the monstrously unethical organization into which they have sold themselves--along with a ticket home paid for personally by the commander who deployed him or her.

Jim, we're sure the troops appreciate your support!

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