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David Brooks: (McCain) Tested Over Time
By David Brooks, New York Times
March 28, 2008
Barack Obama says: "John McCain is determined to carry out four more years
of George Bush's failed policies." Obama is a politician, so it's normal
that he'd choose to repeat the lines that some of his followers want to
hear. But before people buy that argument, I'd ask them to read three
speeches.
The first was delivered by McCain on Sept. 28, 1983. The Reagan
administration was seeking Congressional authorization to support the
deployment of U.S. Marines in Lebanon. McCain, a freshman legislator,
decided to oppose his president and party.
McCain argued that Lebanese society, as it existed then, could not be
stabilized and unified by American troops. He made a series of concrete
observations about the facts on the ground. Lebanon was in a state of de
facto partition. The Lebanese Army would not soon be strong enough to drive
out the Syrians. The American presence would not intimidate the Syrians into
negotiating.
"I do not foresee obtainable objectives in Lebanon." He concluded. "I
believe the longer we stay, the more difficult it will be to leave, and I am
prepared to accept the consequences of our withdrawal."
This was not the speech of a man who thinks military force is the answer to
every problem. It was the speech of one who conforms policies to facts. And
it came a month before a terrorist attack that killed 241 Americans.
The second speech was delivered on Nov. 5, 2003. This was not a grand
strategy speech. It was a critique of the execution of existing U.S. policy.
First, McCain wondered about the Pentagon's publicity campaign in Iraq:
"When, in the course of days, we increase by thousands our estimate of the
numbers of Iraqis trained, it sounds like somebody is cooking the books."
He then pointed out that the U.S. had not committed sufficient troops. He
called for a counterinsurgency strategy in which U.S. forces would actually
hold secure territory. "Simply put," he said, "there does not appear to be a
strategy behind our current force levels in Iraq, other than to preserve the
illusion that we have sufficient forces in place to meet our objectives."
He excoriated the arrogance of Paul Bremer and the Coalition Provisional
Authority: "The C.P.A. seems to think that all wisdom is made in America,
and that the Iraqi people were defeated, not liberated."
This was the speech of a man, adjusting to changing circumstances, who was
calling on the administration to adjust quickly as well.
The third McCain speech was delivered on Wednesday. It is as personal,
nuanced and ambitious a speech as any made by a presidential candidate this
year.
McCain noted that we are not only fighting a war on terror. The world is
seeing a growing split between liberal democracies and growing autocracies.
We are seeing a world in which great power rivalries - with China, Russia
and Iran - have to be managed and soothed.
Moreover, the U.S. is not the sole hegemon. Power is widely distributed
among many rising nations. McCain's core purpose in the speech was to revive
the foreign policy tradition that has jumped parties but that has been
associated with people like Theodore Roosevelt, Henry Stimson, Dean Acheson,
John Kennedy and Ronald Reagan.
In this tradition, a strong America is the key to world peace, but America's
role is as a leading player in an international system. America didn't
defeat communism, McCain said Wednesday, the American-led global community
did. This is the tradition that Robert Kagan of the Carnegie Endowment has
been describing for a decade.
McCain offered to build new pillars for that system - a League of
Democracies, a new nuclear nonproliferation regime and a successor to the
Kyoto treaty. In stabilizing Asia and the Middle East, he would rely more on
democracies like Turkey, India, Israel and Iraq, and less on Mubarak and
Musharraf.
Unlike the realists, McCain believes other nations have to be judged
according to how they treat their own citizens. Unlike the Bush
administration in its first few years, he believes global treaties cannot
solely be evaluated according to a narrow definition of the American
interest. The U.S. also has to protect the fabric of the international
system.
McCain opened his speech with a description of his father leaving home on
the day of Pearl Harbor, and then being gone for much of the next four
years. He harkened back repeatedly to the accomplishments of the Truman
administration.
In so doing, he signaled that the foreign policy debate of the coming months
will be very different from the one of the past six years. Anybody who
thinks McCain is merely continuing the Bush agenda is not paying attention.
Please click here to read the entire article.
By David Brooks, New York Times
March 28, 2008
Barack Obama says: "John McCain is determined to carry out four more years
of George Bush's failed policies." Obama is a politician, so it's normal
that he'd choose to repeat the lines that some of his followers want to
hear. But before people buy that argument, I'd ask them to read three
speeches.
The first was delivered by McCain on Sept. 28, 1983. The Reagan
administration was seeking Congressional authorization to support the
deployment of U.S. Marines in Lebanon. McCain, a freshman legislator,
decided to oppose his president and party.
McCain argued that Lebanese society, as it existed then, could not be
stabilized and unified by American troops. He made a series of concrete
observations about the facts on the ground. Lebanon was in a state of de
facto partition. The Lebanese Army would not soon be strong enough to drive
out the Syrians. The American presence would not intimidate the Syrians into
negotiating.
"I do not foresee obtainable objectives in Lebanon." He concluded. "I
believe the longer we stay, the more difficult it will be to leave, and I am
prepared to accept the consequences of our withdrawal."
This was not the speech of a man who thinks military force is the answer to
every problem. It was the speech of one who conforms policies to facts. And
it came a month before a terrorist attack that killed 241 Americans.
The second speech was delivered on Nov. 5, 2003. This was not a grand
strategy speech. It was a critique of the execution of existing U.S. policy.
First, McCain wondered about the Pentagon's publicity campaign in Iraq:
"When, in the course of days, we increase by thousands our estimate of the
numbers of Iraqis trained, it sounds like somebody is cooking the books."
He then pointed out that the U.S. had not committed sufficient troops. He
called for a counterinsurgency strategy in which U.S. forces would actually
hold secure territory. "Simply put," he said, "there does not appear to be a
strategy behind our current force levels in Iraq, other than to preserve the
illusion that we have sufficient forces in place to meet our objectives."
He excoriated the arrogance of Paul Bremer and the Coalition Provisional
Authority: "The C.P.A. seems to think that all wisdom is made in America,
and that the Iraqi people were defeated, not liberated."
This was the speech of a man, adjusting to changing circumstances, who was
calling on the administration to adjust quickly as well.
The third McCain speech was delivered on Wednesday. It is as personal,
nuanced and ambitious a speech as any made by a presidential candidate this
year.
McCain noted that we are not only fighting a war on terror. The world is
seeing a growing split between liberal democracies and growing autocracies.
We are seeing a world in which great power rivalries - with China, Russia
and Iran - have to be managed and soothed.
Moreover, the U.S. is not the sole hegemon. Power is widely distributed
among many rising nations. McCain's core purpose in the speech was to revive
the foreign policy tradition that has jumped parties but that has been
associated with people like Theodore Roosevelt, Henry Stimson, Dean Acheson,
John Kennedy and Ronald Reagan.
In this tradition, a strong America is the key to world peace, but America's
role is as a leading player in an international system. America didn't
defeat communism, McCain said Wednesday, the American-led global community
did. This is the tradition that Robert Kagan of the Carnegie Endowment has
been describing for a decade.
McCain offered to build new pillars for that system - a League of
Democracies, a new nuclear nonproliferation regime and a successor to the
Kyoto treaty. In stabilizing Asia and the Middle East, he would rely more on
democracies like Turkey, India, Israel and Iraq, and less on Mubarak and
Musharraf.
Unlike the realists, McCain believes other nations have to be judged
according to how they treat their own citizens. Unlike the Bush
administration in its first few years, he believes global treaties cannot
solely be evaluated according to a narrow definition of the American
interest. The U.S. also has to protect the fabric of the international
system.
McCain opened his speech with a description of his father leaving home on
the day of Pearl Harbor, and then being gone for much of the next four
years. He harkened back repeatedly to the accomplishments of the Truman
administration.
In so doing, he signaled that the foreign policy debate of the coming months
will be very different from the one of the past six years. Anybody who
thinks McCain is merely continuing the Bush agenda is not paying attention.
Please click here to read the entire article.