By Dave Anderson:
Michael Steele, chairman of the Republican National Committee made an interesting statement on Afghanistan that sounds like it is coming from the mouth of a 'Hogger than a Republican (h/t TPM)
"Keep in mind again, federal candidates, this was a war of Obama's choosing. This is not something the United States had actively prosecuted or wanted to engage in."
He's right. The current war in Afghanistan with its current objective set of creating a strong, stable central government that is able to ignore its Pashtun plurality's core interests is a war of choice, and it is Obama's choice.
When Obama decided to escalate the war for the first time, his base voters were strongly against this choice. He rose to prominence among the primary electorate for being the prominent national Democrat who was against the war in Iraq before it became blindingly obvious that maximalist objective sets run by utopians was a bad idea. And then once he was in office, he backs an expanded and ill-defined mission. At the time, this decision was backed by a slight plurality of the population. However, most supporters were Republicans and others who had not nor will ever vote for Obama.
It is not shocking that he is not receiving sustained political support for his Afghanistan policies when the supporters of that policy are not his normal allies who have a vested interest in not (correctly) capitalizing on policy failure.
I am interested to see how this plays out. If the Republicans become the anti-imperialism party in the next two election cycles, where does that leave you guys? Would you be willing to bet on economic insanity if it came with the destruction of empire?
ReplyDelete@ T. Greer � What, you mean like when Bush Jr. ran on the �no more nation-building� anti-imperialism platform? Or when the Republicans were all over Clinton for intervening in Bosnia and Somalia (even if the latter was actually started by Bush Sr.)? And I don�t think the drumbeats for bombing Iran, or �protecting Israel�s interests�, or demonizing Turkey because they�ve recently been a little peeved at the Israelis really counts as anti-imperialist either. Those of us blessed with a long-term memory know quite well that the Republican Party is about as far from anti-imperialist as you can get, and they haven�t done anything in the last couple of years to prove otherwise. They may occasionally make the right sounds, but their M.O. hasn�t shifted in the least. They simply aren�t a real choice for any anti-imperialist.
ReplyDeleteGranted, with them in charge, the economic insanity will cause the destruction of empire, and it may regardless, but I�d certainly like to see someone at least try to mitigate the fall somewhat.
@Dave � While I have no faith in the current strategy in Afghanistan and I think Obama deserves a fair bit of blame for doubling down on said strategy, its stated goal is no different from that of the Bush administration�s. Obama did not start the war, and the general consensus among a not-insignificant fraction of the left-wing during the Bush years was that Bush took his eyes off the ball in Afghanistan to play in the Iraqi sandbox and that the U.S. should have put more of its resources into Afghanistan and done the job properly. No doubt the tide is now turning against the Afghan war as well, but to pretend that there was no support on the left for it, and that Obama is somehow now solely responsible for the whole mess, is revisionist history at best.
@BJ-
ReplyDeleteRight, and the Republican Party has also been the farthest thing away from small government as you can get. But lets say the party follows its current trajectory and becomes a libertarian outfit - or at least, LibertarianLite. If this choice was between nonintervention abroad and libertarianism at home or an empire abroad and Keynesianism at home, what would you choose?
If the Republicans become the anti-imperialism party in the next two election cycles ...
ReplyDeleteIn what universe does that have any chance of happening? The next two election cycles are four years and as we know from the Vietnam experience it takes conservatives decades to let go of a failed adventure.
Just because Michael Steele couldn't help himself burping doesn't make the GOP an anti-imperialist party.
"He rose to prominence among the primary electorate for being the prominent national Democrat who was against the war in Iraq before it became blindingly obvious that maximalist objective sets run by utopians was a bad idea. And then once he was in office, he backs an expanded and ill-defined mission."
ReplyDeleteThis is weird; Obama campaigned loudly on the need to make the war in Afghanistan a priority, and swore he'd make it so. This may have been a terrible idea, but it was hardly a secret, given the way he went around making speeches about it as one of the foundations of his national security policy. Anyone in the "base" who didn't know this apparently never read or listened to anything Obama ever said about Afghanistan and Iraq.
I'm afraid, incidentally, that "Afghanistan is Obama's war in the sense that Vietnam was Nixon's war" may prove to be apt. Probably down to the we-could-have-gotten-out-on-the-same-terms-when-you-came-into-office-but-without-all-those-dead conclusion.
ReplyDelete