Centerfield

I doubt it. What sort of a headcount are we really talking about here for the percent of Americans who is so unhappy with the Iraq situation that they'd embrace beginning a swift withdrawal regardless of promises made or circumstances on the ground?

I haven't seen any numbers, but my sense from people I talk to is that there are a lot of people who are worried or unhappy but who don't think we can responsibly bail any time soon. My guess is that those who'd embrace beginning a swift withdrawal beginning now are less than 10%. That's 90% pure guess, of course. "People I've talked to" is about as unscientific a sample as you can get.

Posted by: bk at August 23, 2005 11:04 AM

I tend to think the two sides will marginalize each other. Left wingers will be repelled by an alliance that includes Pat Buchanan. Right wingers will be repelled by an alliance that includes Michael Moore.

In any case, Hayden is engaged in some opportunistic cherry picking. A guy like Buckley may voice opposition to this particular war, but he's not going to man the barricades anytime soon. There just is no broad-based realignment in Hayden's favor other than the usual isolationist suspects (Buchanan).

Posted by: Henry Woodbury at August 23, 2005 12:58 PM

Agreed -- those breaking from the mainstream right in opposing the war have little widespread credibility. Buchanan is a political has-been, and Rep. Jones, to put it bluntly, is not known for his intelligence among Congressional colleagues.

I suppose things could change if, come 2008 or so, the occupation still continues with no end in sight. In that case, moderate libertarians and foreign policy realist-types (many currently lukewarm on the war) might be pushed into opposition. Even then, they're highly unlikely to make common cause with someone like Hayden. There's just too much suspicion that members of the antiwar left actually want the United States to lose -- whether for its own sake, or to make President Bush look bad.

Posted by: Jeff Bergman at August 23, 2005 01:41 PM

You can argue all day that the war was wrong. I personally think it was the wrong thing to do. However, there needs to be a bit of an education program that even if we should never have been there, we have to finish what we started or end up with something exponentially more dangerous then what we started off with. It is simply not a sane position for anyone to advocate pulling out now.

Posted by: Jim m at August 23, 2005 02:38 PM

Actually, Jeff, W is doing a fine job of that all by himself, thanks.

Posted by: Blue Jean at August 23, 2005 05:34 PM

I wasn't aware that the "center" was for the Iraq War, as a whole. I was under the impression that the withdrawal calls were fairly evenly distributed throughout ideological strains.

No?

Posted by: carla at August 23, 2005 06:01 PM

Well, the only notable "centrist" I know of is Chuck Hagel, and from what I can tell he's more of a maverick. I looked at his voting record and he seems rather conservative. I don't know of any issue where he's liberal besides maybe the Iraq war, but I recall that he wished that we had gone in with more troops. I don't think he was anti-invasion. All the other more moderate politicians I have heard do not advocate a swift withdrawal.

To me the real question, posed by Jon Stewart recently, is not stay the course/withdraw, but are these people capable of carrying the mission on successfully given their past failures? Well, I dunno, but I don't see what other choice we have now. And I don't what is improper with a strategy to help secure the country and train Iraqi troops. It might be nice for the American people to get a better sense of benchmarks for withdrawing, to clarify and detail our goals, but in general it sounds reasonable.

My major question to you Carla is what is wrong with allowing the popularly elected government decide when withdrawal is best? You yourself on your blog indicated that either staying or leaving is likely to cause serious problems. Why not let the Iraqis decide? Don't we owe it to them? Who better to determine whether we ought to stay or not?

As long as they show a good faith effort to keep the process moving along, it seems arrogant for someone over here to decide what's best for them. They certainly don't want us there longer than we're necessary, and they have to answer to their constituents in the upcoming election. All the polls I've seen indicate that while the Iraqis don't want us there, they don't want us to go either, so there's a grudging tolerance.

Besides Bush has motivation to go sooner rather than later and the Iraqis have motivation for us to go sooner rather than later. Given this, why push for a hasty withdrawal? If you believe we've screwed over the Iraqis, why screw them over again by leaving precipitously despite their wishes?

Most importantly in your response, state why your views are more likely to be true than the Iraqis'.

Posted by: Adam at August 23, 2005 07:04 PM

I wasn't aware that the "center" was for the Iraq War, as a whole. I was under the impression that the withdrawal calls were fairly evenly distributed throughout ideological strains.

Carla,

Pro-war "centrists" are every bit as deluded as pro-war conservatives. Even with 60% of Americans believing the Iraq war was a mistake, these pro-war centrists continue to think that THEY'RE the realists, doing battle with an obstinant idealistic far leftist antiwar movement. They have become unwitting shills for the neoconservative warmongers, who have no loyalty toward either of the two major parties and are merely using the Republican party to carry out their Orwellian "perpetual war for perpetual peace" philosophy.

Posted by: nicrivera at August 23, 2005 07:38 PM

You can argue all day that the war was wrong. I personally think it was the wrong thing to do. However, there needs to be a bit of an education program that even if we should never have been there, we have to finish what we started or end up with something exponentially more dangerous then what we started off with. It is simply not a sane position for anyone to advocate pulling out now.

Thank you, Jim m, for letting me know that those of us who have opposed this war from the very beginning and are advocating an end to it are not offering a sane position. And here I thought repeating the same failed policies and expecting different results was the definition of insanity.

"Finish what we started," you say? Isn't that type of logic that kept us bogged down in Vietnam for so long? Think of how many thousands of lives could have been spared had LBJ pulled our troops out of Vietnam rather staying the course in a war which, like this one, was based upon lies and exaggerations and did utterly nothing to protect the security of this nation. How many more years do we have to spend in Iraq in order for us to "finish what we started"?

Posted by: nicrivera at August 23, 2005 07:58 PM

They have become unwitting shills for the neoconservative warmongers

Minor point of order: one can't be an "unwitting shill". By definition, the term requires complicity.

Personally, I am far from unwitting, but I object to the characterization as a shill. I think the neoconservative vision of foreign policy - while a touch overambitious - is fairly smart. It isn't very conservative, and it's fairly novel in historical terms (see Pat Buchanan's lengthy critique and review of U.S. isolationism, A Nation not an Empire; cf. Robert Kagan, Of Paradise and Power.

Posted by: Simon at August 23, 2005 09:56 PM

Nic,

While many centrists opposed getting into this war, you seem to imply that any one who feels that it might be necessary to stay for several more years is a closet warmonger. You also didn't address what was wrong with letting the Iraqis decide when we ought to go. It would be one thing if Iraqi polls were for immediate withdrawal and it was only the government who opposed it, but that's not the case.

I know we're losing and lives and treasure over there, but it not at all clear that a swift withdrawal would not cost us more lives and treasure in the long run. There's wisdom to both cutting your losses and not to squandering an investment. Given the difficulties in determining which it is, I don't see why we shouldn't defer to the Iraqis as long as they're making good faith efforts.

Posted by: Adam at August 23, 2005 10:38 PM

To me the real question, posed by Jon Stewart recently, is not stay the course/withdraw, but are these people capable of carrying the mission on successfully given their past failures?

I thought Jon Stewart was a comedian. Posted by: c3 at August 24, 2005 01:10 AM

Do you watch the Daily Show, Chris? He really does try to have serious conversations with his guests and has a lot of politicians and pundits on. Do you know that he basically put the final nail in the coffin of Crossfire by going on air and blasting them for being partisan hacks that lower the quality of debate in this country?

He definitely is left-leaning, but I would consider him a centrist. He's made it onto various centrist lists of people who are making America better.

I like him because he's straight-talking and honest and of course funny. For instance, following the Iraqi elections he said on his show that he didn't like the methods but it looked as if Bush might have been right. I think he really is improving the quality of debate in this country. He may be left-leaning but he is open-minded.

I like to mention him and Bill Maher when discussing Iraq as a shield from liberal attack because you really couldn't call Jon or Bill shills for the adminstration. It's like, can I really be that bad if I have views similar to those guys?

Posted by: Adam at August 24, 2005 10:39 AM

nicrivera, my point is simple. To pull out now would assure the complete collapse of Iraq in to a more dangerous rouge state then what we started with. We must stay until we can get the new Iraqi forces trained and the government has had a chance to establish itself.

It was dumb to go in there in the first place. I am of the opinion that we need more troops in there. However, our current military setup is not able to handle this. This is poor planning in an ill-concieved and wrong war. Our efforts should have remained focused on Afghanistan, which will also become a bigger mess if we do not watch out. The signs of trouble have been building for a long time.

I hold our leaders responsible for this mess; but we have to figure out a way to get out of this mess without leaving behind a bigger one then what we started with. To pull troops out now is a recipe for absolute disaster home and abroad.

The administration needs to be honest. Troops have to be there for number of years. There will be losses. However, it should be noted that troop losses in Iraq are still no where near the level of what Vietnam was by a long shot.

We are responsible for creating this mess. To pull out and leave a bigger mess is even more irresponsible then starting a war for all the wrong reasons. We have an obligation to at least stay until the Iraqi governement either no longer wants us there or thinks it is ready to handle the security situation.

We have been put into a lose-lose situation because of a flawed ideology. The lesser loss is to stay until the Iraqis are better settled with a government. I feel if we pull out now, it is a bigger loss in the future because Iraq will degrade into a pure terrorist state. It still may go in that direction down the road; but we need to try to prevent it.

Posted by: Jim m at August 24, 2005 10:46 AM

Carla,

Pro-war "centrists" are every bit as deluded as pro-war conservatives. Even with 60% of Americans believing the Iraq war was a mistake, these pro-war centrists continue to think that THEY'RE the realists, doing battle with an obstinant idealistic far leftist antiwar movement. They have become unwitting shills for the neoconservative warmongers, who have no loyalty toward either of the two major parties and are merely using the Republican party to carry out their Orwellian "perpetual war for perpetual peace" philosophy.

Uhh...okay.

But I'm still at square one with my original question. I don't see that "centrists" are any more for (or against) the Iraq War than any other ideological strain.

What am I missing?

Posted by: carla at August 24, 2005 05:14 PM

I'm not sure if I follow you Carla. It is my perception there are sizable number of centrists who opposed or supported the invasion. However, I thought this post was supposed to concern precipitious withdrawal. It all really depends on how you define precipitious. For instace, I received an email from MoveOn today and they were supporting a bill which called for withdrawal to start no later than Oct 1st 2006. By means of support, they said that this would give the Iraqis some time to prepare.

So it might seem that even MoveOn does not desire immediate withdrawal. However, they did say that this was a step in the right direction which probably means they might be for immediate withdrawal. Given their support of Sheehan, maybe they do think that, I dunno.

In any case, in my travels I haven't come across one centrist who called for immediate or near immediate withdrawal. There seems to be the pragmatic realization that we may need to be there a few more years. But maybe I'm not well traveled enough. Could you tell us the centrists you're thinking about?

What do you think about withdrawal? And if you do think we ought to do it quickly, I again and sincerely ask what is wrong with letting the Iraqi government decide as long as they seem to be acting in good faith? I hear arguments back and forth and since I don't know all the details, I figure the Iraqis have the best sense of whether we're helping or hurting them. No?

Posted by: Adam at August 24, 2005 06:15 PM