A New Strategy for Kerry

June 17, 2004

President Bush has taken yet another black eye as the 9/11 commission found no trace of a “collaborative relationship” between Saddam Hussein and the

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suicidal terrorists who destroyed the World Trade Center. One more excuse for Bush’s war on Iraq has gone the way of Saddam’s mythical arsenal of weapons of mass destruction.

These excuses were always ridiculous. Saddam and al-Qaeda were enemies. Their ways were not his. He wasn’t a suicidal type. Their scheme would have sounded hare-brained to him. The weapons they used were distinctly low-tech: a few blades. Even lacking the arsenal Bush’s slam-dunk experts said he had, he could have given them more potent arms than that. And if he’d had that arsenal, he wouldn’t have dared to use it against this country.

Moreover, if Bush had really believed his own yarns, he wouldn’t have dared attack Iraq. He backed down in a hurry when the mad dwarf of North Korea, who really does have an arsenal, blustered back at him. Bush is afraid of Ariel Sharon. He’s timid on domestic political issues, like abortion, about which he says he has strong convictions.

Besides, we’ve had abundant testimony from insiders that the Bush team wanted war with Iraq long before the 9/11 horrors. He surrounded himself with neoconservative advisors — the Learned Juniors of Zion, as I like to call them — who had plotted war on Iraq for the Israeli Likud Party before they found niches on the Bush team. They pushed to have their dubious buddy Ahmad Chalabi anointed the new ruler of Iraq. As a result, they are totally discredited.

Not since the Nixon years has an administration suffered so many embarrassments, and Nixon’s revolved around a mere burglary, not a life-and-death matter. The New York Times has editorially called on Bush to apologize for misleading the American public. If Bill Clinton deserved impeachment for perjuring himself about his adultery, what does Bush deserve for leading us into a war on false pretexts?

But the Republican Congress that impeached Clinton and still supports Bush’s war is not about to call Bush to account, especially in an election year. Only the voters can hold the whole Republican Party responsible, but John Kerry is too compromised himself to make this a campaign theme.

Besides, Kerry is trying to play down his liberal record. The Democrats are still haunted by the electoral blowouts of McGovern (1972), Carter (1980), Mondale (1984), and Dukakis (1988). Carter (1976) and Clinton (1992 and 1996) won by appearing relatively conservative, so Kerry doesn’t want to come on as another Massachusetts pinko.

[Breaker quote: Attack!]

So he’s running a campaign so dull that even as Bush tumbles in the polls, Kerry doesn’t rise. He repeats old liberal themes that may help consolidate his base, but he could well lose a critical number of votes to Ralph Nader, whose fierce anti-war position grabs the Democrats who recently supported Howard Dean.

Kerry may as well go for broke. It’s unwise to count on winning by default against an aggressive incumbent. He should make disillusionment with the war his theme, instead of merely chanting that we should ask the United Nations to bail us out. Even Bush is calling for more UN assistance.

Put otherwise, Kerry should show some leadership by doing what he did before: opposing a misconceived and mendacious war. That was how he became a national figure as a young Vietnam combat veteran.

That would make his campaign exciting, even inspiring. It would offer, as Goldwater conservatives used to say, a choice, not an echo. Bush is very vulnerable now. The country that once solidly supported him is now divided about him. Kerry should make the most of its doubts.

The aforementioned Democratic blowouts occurred in a different America, when the Cold War seemed to make military power a top priority. Bush is counting on turning anxiety about terrorism into the kind of political support that carried Nixon, Reagan, and the first President Bush to landslide victories.

But after the Cold War ended, the country relaxed. In 1992 the draft-evading Clinton beat the decorated veteran Bush, fresh off his victory in the first Iraq war. The Soviet Union is gone, and terrorist cells aren’t even comparable as a looming danger.

As a veteran, Kerry has the standing to challenge a president who wages war after avoiding combat himself. If Kerry wants to win, he should be bold enough to call Bush’s bluff — which has just been, once more, exposed as a very hollow bluff.

Joseph Sobran

Copyright © 2004 by the Griffin Internet Syndicate,
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