Four years ago in the Democratic presidential race, the debate in Iowa was dominated by farming subsidies, agricultural mergers and occasional references to prescription drugs. Today the Democratic frontrunner cannot stand before an unsuspecting group of Iowans without citing the name of Saddam Hussein at least three times. Howard Dean spits out Saddam’s hometown of Tikrit as if it were half way to Omaha, Nebraska.
Dean’s Iraq strategy in Iowa may be just a sign of an excruciatingly close race that has less than a week to run. After all, it was Iraq that first propelled the obscure doctor to the front of the pack last year. And Iraq remains by far the biggest challenge for the Bush White House–a challenge big enough and unpredictable enough to shape its chances of reelection.
But can Iraq really help Democrats decide who should be their party’s nominee? As Wesley Clark’s campaign likes to point out, this is the first wartime election since the Vietnam era and there are few guides as to how foreign affairs can drive domestic politics.
Of course, by raising Iraq so loudly in rural Iowa, Dean is unsubtly reminding voters about his once lonely criticism of the war. Yet today he stands amid a pack of Democrats who are all sharply critical of the president’s record on Iraq, whether or not they voted to authorize the use of force in Congress. With the exceptions of Joe Lieberman (a staunch supporter of the war) and Dennis Kucinich (a staunch opponent of the war), all the Democrats accuse George W. Bush of misleading America in the run-up to war, and alienating America’s allies along the way.
Dean argues that the Iraq vote showed that his rivals–especially John Kerry, John Edwards and Dick Gephardt–lack the leadership skills and good sense to be president. This week he cited the Carnegie Endowment’s searing report on Iraq to underscore his presidential instincts in foreign affairs. The report concluded that Iraq’s weapons posed no immediate threat, and that the much-maligned United Nations weapons inspectors had been succeeding on the ground. It also accused the Bush administration of misrepresenting intelligence reports on Iraq’s weapons.
“It brings up the question of foreign policy experience,” Dean told reporters on Monday. “I think my foreign policy experience of exercising patience and judgment was the kind of foreign policy experience we wanted. Not the kind of foreign policy experience that allows John Edwards, John Kerry and Dick Gephardt and apparently Wes Clark to support this war.
“This is about having someone who is willing to stand up to George Bush all the time, not just six weeks before the Iowa caucuses.”
In almost the next breath, Dean displays the kind of inexperience in foreign affairs that suggests he is more ready to attack President Bush than take the helm of American diplomacy. Dean told a French reporter that he would travel to “the countries the president has insulted” (he named France and Germany) as one of the first things he would do in office. In December he told NEWSWEEK he would also travel to Asia, Latin America and the Arab world–and do all that before his inauguration. Aside from the huge impracticalities of such a world tour, Dean ignores the awkward fact that he would be trampling all over a sitting president. Even George W. Bush knew he needed to wait until Bill Clinton moved out of the White House before tearing up his foreign policy.
If Dean wants to display his innate sense of good judgment he might be better off looking to the future of Iraq, rather than rehashing the past of the pre-war period. It’s there that the Bush administration finds itself in deep difficulty on ground that is entirely familiar to the voters of Iowa. Nine months after Saddam Hussein fled from power, the administration is still struggling to establish an Iraqi government that the majority of Iraqis can support.
Washington’s current proposal is, of all things, the caucus style of voting that gives Iowans good reason to scratch their heads. Iowa’s caucuses are so complex that the Dean campaign is training its young supporters how to cast their votes for the former Vermont governor. Anyone who has previously performed the arcane rituals of caucus night wears a badge proclaiming their status as a caucus veteran. Little wonder the majority Shiites in Iraq distrust the caucus plans and are demanding direct elections for a new Iraqi government. Before the new year, President Bush declared he wanted to spread democracy throughout the Muslim world. But even many Iowans feel the caucus system is a less than efficient way to exercise democracy.
Administration officials argue that Iraq isn’t ready for direct elections. The results, they say, would be dominated by groups that are already well organized. The caucus system would give new groups time to emerge while laying the foundations of a democratic system. But it certainly doesn’t look that way in Iowa, where the caucuses have entrenched the power of existing groups. Iowa may lack tribal leaders, but its caucuses are dominated by organized groups such as labor unions. Either Iraq is ready for democracy, or it isn’t. A caucus is no substitute for one person, one vote.
Unlike Iowa’s caucuses, the voting in Iraq will have a deep and lasting impact not just on Baghdad, but on the prospects of American forces to return home. The Democratic candidates talk simplistically about internationalizing the peacekeeping forces in Iraq, as if that alone will remove U.S. soldiers from the firing line. In fact, the arrival of foreign troops is far more likely to back up American forces than to relieve them of their duties. But if anything can speed up an American withdrawal from Iraq, it’s a new and stable government in Baghdad.
That’s the real prize for any presidential candidate–not the points-scoring game of who can attack President Bush most aggressively about the run-up to war. By far the best way for the Democrats to stand out from one another, and from the president, is to offer a credible plan for Iraq to walk on its own two feet.
