Op/Ed - William F. Buckley
THE NEW WAR HAWK
Tue Aug 10, 8:00 PM ET
By William F. Buckley Jr.

<http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=index&cid=742>

Six months ago I ventured in this space that the Democratic position on
the war in Iraq (news - web sites) was the single most critical question
in U.S. politics. The statement made on Monday by John Kerry (news - web
sites) is the climactic event in this matter. Senator Kerry said that
notwithstanding all that is known now, whatever have been the
developments in the past year, if he had it to do again, he'd vote as he
did: in favor of giving the president the power he requested, before
going on to wage war in Iraq.

Kerry made this faintly more tolerable to the anti-war segment by saying
that he was pleading, after all, a point of constitutional rectitude:
The president should have the power inherent in his role as commander in
chief. Kerry did not trouble to ponder what it is the Constitution was
talking about when it said that only Congress could declare war. Never
mind; we don't declare wars any more, we just fight.

But outstanding in political meaning was less what Kerry said about
standing by his vote than what he said about the long-term commitment we
have undertaken. Surely he would pledge to reduce our troops in Iraq by
next summer, even if he wasn't prepared to simply call them home, as
Democratic contender Howard Dean (news - web sites) had demanded.

Well, here is how Kerry put it: "I believe if you do the kind of
alliance-building that is available to us, that it is appropriate to
have a goal of reducing our troops over that period of time. Obviously
we have to see how events unfold."

Indeed. How events unfold. What events?

Here is where Kerry underwrote the Iraq venture in terms extraordinarily
comprehensive. "The measurement has to be, as I've said all along, the
stability of Iraq, the ability to have the elections, and the training
and transformation of the Iraqi security force itself." Get from your
paper supplier the thinnest sheet in the inventory, and you won't
succeed in wedging it between the Republican and the Democratic position
on the nature of our strategic objectives in Iraq.

This is reassuring, by most lights. The nation is at war; it is
comforting that both political parties support the war. What is
astonishing is that the entire vector of U.S. politics is here affected.
The Democratic Party, through its leaders, has expressed itself with
progressive force against the Iraq war. It was certainly expected that
Democratic challenger John Kerry would pound home his criticisms of
President Bush (news - web sites)'s policies.

Public support for the war has diminished in the 17 months since we went
in. This reflects the absence of the weapons of mass destruction, the
disaffection of some of our allies, the intransigence of the insurgents,
and the mounting fatalities. The approval of the war has reduced from 73
percent early on to about 49 percent, and the dynamics of democratic
government would suggest that the Democratic challenger would proceed,
if not to deconstruct the war, at least to criticize the conduct of it
and the assumptions associated with it.

Mr. Kerry is saying that our commitments continue until democratic
elections in Iraq are held. This is a dream, though not, we like to
think, extravagant. The New York Times has published an update on
concrete questions, from which we learn that there is bad news (the
insurgents have risen from 5,000 in April to 20,000 today), but that
estimates of support for the new Iraqi government are at 68 percent, and
80 percent of Iraqis believe that life will improve under the new
government. Already there is an increase in oil production and in
electricity.

It is an honorable thing for John Kerry to do, to associate himself so
fully with the whole Iraq enterprise. Mr. Bush can take satisfaction
from that endorsement, and critics of the war will have to exert
themselves in other ways than merely to support the election of John Kerry.


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