What if Joel Klein is right?

[dsc]

http://www.time.com/time/election2004/columnist/klein/article/0,18471,638338,00.html

For the record I think Klein is not a very credible source, but here we are dealing with admitted speculation as to what Bush might do. Thus this is more about his acumen of reading Bush than his honesty.

Kerry's aides insist that the Senator's Iraq reticence is merely an act of patriotic high-mindedness reflecting a desire to show support for the troops and to not "politicize" the issue. Oh, please. There are at least three strategic reasons for saying as little as possible right now. The first is Politics 101: There is nothing Kerry can say about Iraq that would have greater emotional impact than the photos from Abu Ghraib or that would point out the contradictions of Bush policy more vividly than the sight of a Baathist general taking control of Fallujah from nonvictorious American Marines. The second reason is that Kerry has been pretty consistent about Iraq, and there is no need to change his basic formulation—which is to seek help from the U.N. and the international community—especially since the President is moving willy-nilly to adopt it. Which leads to the third reason: The Bush policy on Iraq seems to be changing drastically, and cautious Kerry may be waiting to see where it stands come Labor Day before he revises his response to it.

The Fallujah capitulation may be key. Let's say that U.N. envoy Lakhdar Brahimi successfully names a transition government. Let's say the U.N. Security Council ratifies that government. The first priority of the new government could be to build legitimacy with the Iraqi people by separating itself from the U.S. The most logical way to do that would be to extend the Fallujah principle to the entire country: ask the American military to stand down and turn security over to local militias—Baathists in the Sunni triangle, the Kurdish Peshmerga in the north, the Shi'ite Badr Brigade in the south. This would be dreadful long-term policy, an open invitation to civil war. But would the Bush Administration oppose it? Possibly not, on recent evidence, especially if it produced the appearance of calm by November (as it already has in Fallujah). Several Kerry aides said they thought it was possible that some American troops would be coming home this fall.

If so, then what does Kerry say about Iraq? Sooner or later, he will have to tell us whether he thinks the war was worth it. He will have to say whether he believes America has a responsibility to restore stability and rebuild Iraq. He will either have to stick with his U.N. plan and hope the international community will support the new Iraqi government with a major peacekeeping effort, or support the premature withdrawal of American troops, if that is what Bush decides to do. Ultimately, and this is the hardest decision of all, he will have to decide whether to tell Charity Thompson something she doesn't want to hear


end of quote

I hope Klein is wrong but if he isn't what does Kerry say? Would we accept a Kerry running on keeping troops in Iraq longer even with the troops being UN? Frankly I don't put anything past Bush evem selling out our long term future in Iraq to shortterm political gain. I don't see any good position for Kerry to take if Bush takes this one.

[NMDemDist2]

1. i did notice that Bushit is running to implement JK's plan on Iraq

the only problem is the other countries are likely to hold out until November (wasn't that the concensus of the NATO? or EU meeting last month?)

"Old Europe" isn't going to jump to bail Bushit out of this any time soon.

[demgrrrll]

2. I believe someone made a statement that they would not go in until

after the election. I think someone backtracked and said they
were not shutting the door entirely regarding the issue.
I will see what I can google up.

[demgrrrll]

5. What I found was interesting. 15 hours ago the Telegraph reported

that Blair was calling for NATO to take over Southern
Iraq. There was a blurb on Saturday about Bush inviting
the Arab Nations to a NATO summit. There was a third
article on Saturday which noted that NATO wanted to concentrate
more in Afghanistan rather than Iraq. Today, Scheffer said that it
is too early to discuss whether or not NATO should be involved
in Iraq.

[jpgray]

3. It's *probably* too late for that to be implemented?

But the problem with Kerry's position goes further than that--Bush will probably suspend major operations for a few weeks to cut back the casualty rate, and bribe or otherwise coerce some feel-good photo ops out of whatever entity gets the supposed 'handoff.' But yes, Bush could undercut Kerry by either stealing his plan and implementing it first, or getting troops home and leaving a temporarily stable Iraq behind. After Nov. it would be back to business as usual, but it may fool some voters.

[carpetbagger]

4. It's not a bad plan, and it has an easy retort.

The credibility we had to create a national government in Iraq was lost within months, if not weeks, of the fall of Baghdad. We missed the chance.

Factional control is not the best solution, but it may be the only solution. It's worked rather well in the north for a decade, and I've been of the mind since 1991 that we needed to provide just enough force in the north and south to allow the locals to keep the Baathists at bay. American heavy firepower and a UN mandate to the national government may be enough to keep the sides from getting too big for their britches.

Kerry only needs to ask why it took 18 months lost from the war on terror, 500 dead American soldiers, 100+ billion dollars, and the loss of American prestige in the world for Bush to figure this out.

[jfxgillis]

6. Klein is an idiot, on two counts

1. There's no reason on God's Green Earth why Kerry would have to declare whether the original decision was "worth it." It's a fucking suckers game. If he says it wasn't worth it, he pisses off the families who lost loved ones there. If he says it was worth it, he pisses off the Doves. The War is literally history; the task is to improve policy as of January 20, 2005.

2. Kerry has ALREADY stated explicitly and unambiguously that the USA has a responsibility to restore stability. Does Klein not read the papers?

[dsc]

7. On point 2

Klein is saying we could end up having Bush run to the left of Kerry on this. If Bush is in favor of a full pull out and Kerry isn't that seems to be a bad thing.