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November 04, 2006

Election 2006: The war

For some time now I have been monitoring the debate among Objectivists about the upcoming elections. I have little time for blogging right now, but I can no longer hold my tongue on this issue.

Therefore I would like to address, in a series of posts, a number of issues I take to be essential in deciding the preferable outcome of the election. The reason to think about this is not because the Objectivist voting block has any influence on the outcome. It is because the way we judge this question will have implications for our subsequent thinking about where to focus our intellectual strategies in the future.

Older readers of this blog could probably guess that I agree in essence with Leonard Peikoff's recent statement supporting a vote for the Democrats to oppose the threat posed by Republicans' attempt to entrench religion in American politics.

Interestingly, Peikoff does not mention the issue of the war in his statement. This has perplexed those who believe that the war is the essential issue in the election. For example, Robert Tracinski has advocated voting for the Republicans, because a Democratic victory would allegedly hasten surrender in the current war.

If Peikoff is right and Tracinski is wrong, it follows that the war must not be the essential issue. It might seem strange to think this. Militant Islam poses an immediate terrorist threat to the West, whereas conservative religionists pose a more long-term threat of theocracy. If the election could help defeat an immediately threatening enemy, it might seem we should vote to end that threat, and worry about long-term domestic threats later.

Could Peikoff think that the short-term threat is less immediate than many of us think? That is doubtful. Peikoff is the one who warned us of the threat of militant Islam before it was on the radar screen of most anyone else. He warned us of the consequences of the Rushdie affair in the late 1980s. He warned us of Al Qaeda in the 1990s and predicted major terrorist attacks as a result of continuing appeasement. Peikoff appreciates the threat of terrorism, so something else must explain why he does not mention it in his statement.

The war should be the essential issue in this election. It should be, but it isn't, because the choice between Democrats and Republicans will make little difference for the outcome of the war. I will argue for this position presently.

First, why does Tracinski think Democrats will bring defeat? He argues that if Democrats gain control of Congress, they will likely work to cut off funding for the Iraq war, and sooner or later force the withdrawal of our troops and negotiate a "surrender" with Iran and Syria. I have to admit this is probably true.

So let's assume that this much of the scenario is correct: the Democrats pull us out of Iraq. So what? Prima facie this sounds good to me. We are indisputably losing the war in Iraq, where the lives almost 3,000 of our troops have been sacrificed. Recognizing that the war in Iraq bears no direct relation to American interests, Tracinski argues that a pullout would have an indirect adverse effect on our security:

If you imagine that this disaster will be limited to Iraq, think again. Ask yourself: what would happen if the jihadis achieved a victory over the American infidel in Iraq? Flush with confidence and confirmed in the assumption that the Americans, for all of their technological superiority, don't have the moral fortitude to fight a war, where would they go next?

A lot of them would go to Pakistan and Afghanistan and launch an even bigger war against us there, which they would be confident of winning. And what would the Democrats do then? They would throw up their hands and declared that Afghanistan was a mistake, too. Indeed, some on the left have already reached this point. Then the jihadis would set their sights on Pakistan, whose government is already in a stalemate with pro-al-Qaeda tribes in its mountainous provinces.

But don't worry. Maybe Pakistan's new Islamist rulers wouldn't go after us first. Maybe they would start a nuclear war with India, instead.

I was willing to admit that a Democrat-engineered pullout of Iraq was a probability. I am not willing to do the same for this scenario. To begin with, the "maybe" tacked on to the end about a nuclear war with India is incredibly far-fetched. I don't want to see Islamists with a bomb, but simply to assert "maybe they would start a nuclear war" sounds like the most far-fetched (and arbitrary) arguments I heard in high school policy debate. Now the idea that Islamists would be emboldened by a withdrawal from Iraq is more plausible than the Indian nuclear war idea. But there are several factors worth considering here.

First, how much more emboldened could the jihadists be than they are at present? We appeased them in Israel's war in Lebanon, we appeased the Iranians seeking nuclear weapons, and now we permit the Prime Minister of Iraq to order our own troops to remove checkpoints from Sadr City. Jihadists are already pouring resources into Afghanistan and Pakistan. The Taliban is resurgent in Afghanistan, and just a few weeks ago a coup plot was uncovered (though crushed) against Pakistani president Musharraf.

Second, an American withdrawal from Iraq might generate propaganda for Islamists, but it does not follow that the terrorists would simply move from Iraq to other countries. This neglects the fact that the conflict in Iraq is less between terrorist insurgents and the U.S. than it is between rival sects. If we leave now, the bloodshed in Iraq will continue for years and occupy many current jihadists, with the Iranians supporting Shi'ite militias and Al Qaeda supporting Sunnis. Perhaps some Al Qaeda operatives will move elsewhere, but would the number be significant? Perhaps Al Qaeda would carve out some kind of base in Western Iraq, but a large-scale withdrawal would not be inconsistent with leaving a reaction force in the region (as we surely would in Kurdistan) capable of responding threats immediately affecting American interests.

Third, Democrats may well want to negotiate with Iran and Syria, but how does this differ from what the Bush administration is doing now? It has already negotiated with both, not only about stabilizing Iraq but also about Iran's nuclear weapons program. Bill Frist even suggested the possibility of negotatiating with the Taliban. The only difference between Democrats and Republicans in this regard is that Democrats are honest about their desire for appeasement, whereas Republicans try to keep it under wraps.

Fourth, American withdrawal from Iraq may actually offer us the chance to refocus our priorities on more important targets. If Bush's Iraq war is defunded, he may have to look for other targets to avoid being completely emasculated. I don't think this is very likely--but then again, neither is a nuclear war in India.

Perhaps as Tracinski suggests, a Republican victory would spur a temporary reassertion of American power in Iraq, as the 2004 election helped make possible the second battle of Fallujah. But this war will not be won by fits and starts of temporary reassertions every two years. In fact I predict that if Republicans win on Tuesday, Bush might rescind the decision to take down checkpoints in Sadr City, and might even send in troops to battle Shi'ite militias. But the sum total of his policies to date will make such a stance impossible to maintain. Bush has empowered the Shi'ites who support these militias--and the Iraqi prime minister who represents them--through his push for Iraqi democracy. He will not be able to use the Iraqi government to quell the sectarian violence, because the Iraqi government is party to it--and he has sanctioned their sovereignty. Any November surprise will quickly be followed by December, January, and February more of the same.

In short, there is little reason to think that Democrats would be substantially weaker on foreign policy than Republicans are already. This being the case, the essential issue for the election is not the war. All that remains is domestic politics. More on this next time.

Posted by admin at November 4, 2006 12:45 AM

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Posted by: Z at November 7, 2006 07:31 AM

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