Paul Kendall:

Anti-War Movement Dead End?

Watching Congress struggle with how to end the war in Iraq makes one wonder if the Democrats have put themselves into a box and if the anti-war movement is facing a dead end. The loose coalition opposing the war may not like the bloodshed, the waste of American resources, the embarrassment of failure, the militaristic image of America, President Bush, or U.S. oil policy, but as a group it appears to be both short on ideas and politically stalemated. It knows that Iraq is a mistake, but it does not know how to get out of it.

The problem may be that there is, as yet, no national consensus on why we should withdraw our troops. If anything, there is evidence that our country remains deeply wedded to the notions that got us into that war in the first place. That is, many believe that America is the world’s only indispensable nation; that we act generously with other countries in the name of right, truth, and justice; and that much of the rest of the world, especially its Islamic parts, pose dire threats to our well-being.

This perspective is held not only by our president and his Republican allies, but also by some of our new Democratic leaders. They continue to speak and to act as though America is still the world’s hegemon: able to dictate the actions of other nations and to determine the course of world events.

The "Get out of Iraq now!" advocates therefore face a difficult challenge. To achieve a broader coalition behind withdrawal, they must facilitate a different perspective on America’s role in providing global security, on American power, and on our vital interests abroad.

Such a challenge is admittedly a big task, but the place to begin is by asking several questions related to the mission of our military in the Middle East:

• Is global terrorism a real threat to the U.S, or are most terrorist acts in the world reflective of long-standing and unresolved local issues, with al Qaeda being a unique exception?

• Does our vital interest in the Middle East require that we control the production of oil, or only that we assure its continued flow to markets around the world?

• Why should our continuing military presence in Iraq not be limited to minimizing bloodshed during that country’s self-partition process and then to protecting each of those partitioned parts from the armed intervention of its neighbors?

• Is the best response to Iran’s nuclear program to threaten military intervention, or is it to build an international consensus on the drastic consequences awaiting any regime that makes a first strike with a nuclear weapon?

Answering these questions could put our presence in Iraq in a broader context, redefine "victory," and provide cover to those politicians who currently stand exposed to the charges of abandoning our troops and of being "defeatists." On the other hand, if the anti-war movement does not push beyond its demand for an exit plan and does not help develop a different frame of reference for policy decisions, failure to achieve its Iraq objective will not be the only consequence.

In all likelihood, whoever succeeds President Bush will probably be like Nixon following Johnson during Vietnam. He/she will pledge to get us out of the war, will take years to do it, and will go on to repeat the same policy mistakes in the future that initially got us into the current mess. In fostering a national consensus on a different policy framework, however, the anti-war movement would not only achieve its immediate goal in Iraq but would also facilitate a long-term, beneficial change of direction in our nation’s foreign policy.

Fortunately, the movement may now have a self-interested ally in this policy review process: the Democratic party.

It is now apparent that the Democrats cannot cut off funding for the war. It is also apparent that there is no other magic bullet available to them. Knowing these things and that their constituents will be very disappointed if they do not achieve progress on Iraq, the Democrats will have to come up with some other strategy to get out of the box that they have put themselves into.

So sooner rather than later, it is possible that the Democrats will realize that the best way to "victory" in Iraq and in 2008 is to change the terms of engagement. That is, to re-frame the mission of our military’s presence there.

Challenging the current roster of presidential hopefuls during their pre-primary appearances this year would not be a bad place for Democratic party members and the anti-war movement to begin. If they can involve the American public in re-thinking our foreign policy assumptions in Iraq, then the present dead-end in Washington could become a highway to a better future.

Paul Kendall, a semi-retired private investor and resident of Braintree, has traveled widely and lived in South America. He spent last year in Washington, D.C., studying U.S. foreign policy at American University and focusing on issues of national security and U.S.-Latin American relations.