Ezra Klein: Eat Your Heart out, George Lakoff

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May 23, 2007

Eat Your Heart out, George Lakoff

by Nicholas Beaudrot of Electoral Math

John Edwards's CFR speech is still in progress, but I wanted to highlight his World War II and Cold War jujistu. Bush defenders have tried to crown him the love child of Winston Churchill and Harry Truman, full of steely resolve and great moral clarity. But of course, Churchill and Truman understood that managing the post-war peace was just as important and winning the military conflict. Likewise, American foreign policy in the first two decades of the Cold War relied on a combination of military might and more liberal interventionist measures—student exchanges, foreign assistance, and so forth. There's no reason to cede ground on "strong foreign policy" to a bunch of Republicans who want us to hide under the covers every time the President de-classifies a two-year old conversation.

Update: TPMCafe's Election Central has the whole speech.

May 23, 2007 | Permalink

Comments

How Truman and Churchill "managed the post-war peace" is precisely the problem. Gabriel Kolko's *The Politics of War* is a pretty good account of it--sort of what Arno Mayer did for WWI. Truman set up a the framework of a corporate world order, with the Bretton Woods institutions for economic governance, the Security Council for an "idealistic" political fig leaf, and the U.S. military as the iron fist backing everything up. FDR got us into the war to prevent Fortress Europa and the Co-Prosperity Sphere from challenging the American corporate economy's control of resources and markets. Truman set up a postwar system to make sure the corporate economy maintained control of those markets and resources, and to make sure no rival power ever arose to challenge that control.

Posted by: Kevin Carson | May 23, 2007 2:25:12 PM

Wow. I don't even know how to respond to that.

Posted by: Nicholas Beaudrot | May 23, 2007 2:29:18 PM

Nicholas, let me give it a shot.

Ummm Kevin, are you saying that 'Fortress Europa' and the 'Co-Prosperity Sphere' were politically legitimate identities? You do know who built them and how they built them .... right?

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Posted by: Donte Gold | May 23, 2007 4:27:45 PM

Posted by: Donte Gold | May 23, 2007 4:29:13 PM

Posted by: Donte Gold | May 23, 2007 4:29:59 PM

Kevin, are you saying that 'Fortress Europa' and the 'Co-Prosperity Sphere' were politically legitimate identities?

Doesn't look to me like he's saying that. More the opposite.

From the speech:

What we need is not more slogans but a comprehensive strategy to deal with the complex challenge of both delivering justice and being just. Not hard power. Not soft power. Smart power.

But keep in mind that isn't a slogan ... At least he didn't call for "sensitive" power.

My plan calls on Congress to use its funding power to stop the surge and force an immediate withdrawal of 40,000 to 50,000 combat troops from Iraq, followed by an orderly and complete withdrawal of all combat troops in about a year.

This isn't smart at all, except as an electoral tactic, but unfortunately it doesn't make him any less smart than the other major candidates. For a smarter plan, see Cordesman's plan that Ezra pointed out last week, from which I posted a few excerpts to contrast with the likes of Edwards' plan here.

As I have said repeatedly, Congress should send the president the same bill he vetoed again and again until he realizes he has no choice but to start bringing our troops home.

Again, not at all smart, except politically. This kind of analysis, along with his earlier record on Iraq, doesn't inspire confidence in me. His beliefs have followed the polls on this.

I believe that once we are out of Iraq, the U.S. must retain sufficient forces in the region to prevent a genocide, deter a regional spillover of the civil war, and prevent an Al Qaeda safe haven. We will most likely need to retain Quick Reaction Forces in Kuwait and in the Persian Gulf. We will also need some presence in Baghdad, inside the Green Zone, to protect the American Embassy and other personnel.

This is completely unrealistic. Forces outside Iraq will prevent a genocide? There's more likely to be a genocide before we can even finish withdrawing, and no amount of troops outside Iraq will prevent mass murder inside. And reinvading Iraq would be a colossal mess in every way. Can that idea really be the result of serious analysis? Read Cordesman for a more realistic analysis.

It's surprising how much of the speech is criticism of Bush's leadership in policies that Edwards supported him in at the time. There isn't much in the way of concrete ideas. Stop talking about the War on Terror. OK. Give money to the poor and needy abroad. Good idea. Close Guantanamo, don't torture people, restore habeas corpus. Fine. Use diplomacy, listen to professional advisors, be nicer to our soldiers. No kidding. He'll double the budget for military recruiting, pay for new equipment. Bold. He promises a unified Defense budget. That would be interesting.

The "Marshall Corps" of 10,000 professionals to help the world sounds like quite an idea, actually, but it's a little hard to guess how practical it is. The speech reads like he's read every liberal editorial on defense for the last year and will put into effect every proposal, somehow.

I don't know. Very good intentions, I'm sure, but of new results I'm less sure.

Posted by: Sanpete | May 23, 2007 5:13:50 PM

"Forces outside Iraq will prevent a genocide? There's more likely to be a genocide before we can even finish withdrawing, and no amount of troops outside Iraq will prevent mass murder inside. And reinvading Iraq would be a colossal mess in every way. Can that idea really be the result of serious analysis? Read Cordesman for a more realistic analysis."

Yo, thats a 300 page document. Is there a part of it that can sort give me the jist? I am due at Bingo night in a few hours. And is there a democratic candidate that endorses Cortesman's approach?

There is legitimate question as to the feasibility of invading Iraq again after we have left, and perhaps an even better question about our ability to summon the political will-power to do so. But a limited re-deployment to a single city or sector as an atrocity unfolds is not so wildly implausible as to be rejected out of hand, and there is always the possibility that the worst might be deterred merely by a declared willingness to do so, especially if the would be offenders have some stake in continued US backing.

I am not fully convinced, but this is the central issue of the campaign to me and Edwards is the only one on the democratic side (yet -- the field may be incomplete) who seems to acknowledge it. Moreover, Edwards is so dramatically more progressive on virtually every other issue of concern to progressives, and so very far ahead of everyone in terms of electability, that he is starting look pretty good to me.

I'm totally straight.

Posted by: RW | May 24, 2007 3:26:57 AM

RW, there isn't any very useful summary of Cordesman's analysis in the piece, but the last few pages (238 ff) give the gist of what he thinks the prospects are and what needs to be done. I doubt that any Democratic candidate would adopt this, as it rules out a quick withdrawal.

A quick withdrawal would leave trouble in pretty much all the places there's trouble now, only worse, so a limited reinvasion to prevent genocide is unlikely--it would be widespread.

If Iraq is your big issue, which is sensible, there isn't much to choose between the candidates. Obama gets credit for opposing the war before it started, when it mattered most, but he wasn't in the Senate then, so didn't have to actually vote. He introduced a plan for withdrawal a couple months ago, with some detail, but it wasn't too much more realistic than what Edwards is talking about. Neither of them is having much effect on what's happening. Clinton says she'll get out if we're still there when she's elected, but every Democrat would say that. She refuses to mouth the words that she apologizes for or regrets her vote to authorize the war; Edwards has pleased many by apologizing for his vote; but both of them came out against the war only after the polls had shifted decidedly against it. Richardson has been saying things about settling the war right away with diplomacy, which seems very unrealistic. Biden has a different idea, about partition, that at least recognizes the sectarian problems, even if the proposed solution seems unrealistic to me as he explains it. And those last two are in single digits in polls. Take your pick.

Posted by: Sanpete | May 24, 2007 4:23:04 AM

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