John Kerry's speech at NYU yesterday repeated his contention that George Bush has messed up in Iraq and that he, Kerry would do a better job marshalling support from our allies, and oh yeah, fighting the War on Terror too. Today in BOTW, Taranto says "Kerry's biggest argument seems to be that his overpowering charm would win over "allies" and thus allow him to shirk America's responsibility. Who is he kidding?"
It's ridiculous to suggest that if we could only add some (for example) French and German troops to replace some of our soldiers in Iraq, the war would then somehow have more legitimacy or "effectiveness" than it does under the current coalition. Maybe then it would become "the right war, at the right time"?
As Gerard Baker noted in an essay in TWS last week, Kerry has a track record of belittling our best allies, and even when Old Europe stood with us, Kerry voted his knee-jerk, anti-military tradition (ellipses mine):
Last year, during the early stages of the Democratic primary, Senator Kerry told supporters that the more than 30 nations in the international operation to remove Saddam Hussein represented a "trumped-up, so-called coalition of the bribed, the coerced, the bought, and the extorted."...It is odd to hear a candidate who has made rebuilding relations with America's allies a central part of his campaign platform so casually dismiss the efforts of so many of those allies.
...somehow, Senator Kerry tells us he is going to be successful in getting more foreign troops into Iraq. His entire strategy, if it can be dignified with that name, for dealing with the war in Iraq is to get foreign troops in and U.S. troops out. Who does he think will agree to replace Americans, Brits, Poles, and Italians?
Does he really think there are tens of thousands of battle-ready French, German, and Belgian troops willing to go storming into Falluja at the first request from President Kerry? Maybe he's got bigger plans to bribe and coerce those countries.
...What's more, Kerry's grand promises to create a bigger and better coalition than the one created by President Bush rings a bit hollow when one remembers that his past is not exactly the picture of a master coalition-builder.
In 1991, even as British, French (yes, French), Italian, Syrian, Saudi, and other troops were moving to battle positions in the Gulf in Operation Desert Storm, Senator Kerry was voting against authorizing the first President Bush to assemble and lead that coalition.
In the 1980s, when America's allies in Europe, Britain's Margaret Thatcher, Germany's Helmut Kohl, and even France's François Mitterrand were urging Ronald Reagan to press ahead with the deployment of intermediate nuclear forces in Europe, Senator Kerry was calling for a nuclear freeze, aligning himself with the one-sided disarmers in Europe and around the world who would have tilted the balance on the old continent decisively the way of the Warsaw Pact.
Kerry has clearly decided to attack Bush on the issue of Iraq. At least that's what his advisors are telling him today. At least that's what the people who are his advisors today are telling him today. And it's probably a good strategy, if he can stay with it. There's plenty to criticize about Bush's conduct of the Iraq operation. It's just that he's counting on the America people and the media (no problem here) having short memories. More from the Baker piece:
...there's one more reason why it is so galling to hear Kerry besmirch the honor of those governments and their servicemen who are fighting in Iraq.Kerry himself, last time I looked--and I'll admit this is a moving target--supported the war resolution in October 2002. He praised the conduct of the war as it unfolded in 2003, and just a few weeks ago he insisted that, even if he had known two years ago that no stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction would be found in Iraq, he would still have supported the use of force there.
In other words, he came to the very same conclusion that Tony Blair, Silvio Berlusconi, Australia's John Howard, and 40 other leaders came to--that Saddam had to be confronted and disarmed.
But there was one big difference--and it was not that those leaders were coerced or bribed.
Kerry supported the war when it was politically expedient for him to do so.
The French wouldn't be willing or able to give a President Kerry more than window dressing in the way of troop support, at least as long as the coalition is led by the U.S. But if we bug out early, whether it's under a Kerry or a Bush administration, you can bet your ass the French will be filling the vacuum faster than you can say "Oil-For-Food profits" or "TotalFinaElf".
Posted by dan at September 21, 2004 10:57 PM