2004 Year in Review

The results of the first Presidential debate are in

Over the years Senator Kerry has made many appearances on shows like "Meet the Press" and his knowledge on foreign policy issues has been impressive. Since running for President, however, he has until last night, appeared to not have any real plan to end the conflict in Iraq.

One statement that he made in the debate, virtually unreported in the national press, gave an inkling that he understands the quagmire that the United States is in:

Kerry: The time line that I've set out - and again, I want to correct the president, because he's misled again this evening on what I've said. I didn't say I would bring troops out in six months. I said, if we do the things that I've set out and we are successful, we could begin to draw the troops down in six months.

And I think a critical component of success in Iraq is being able to convince the Iraqis and the Arab world that the United States doesn't have long-term designs on it.

As I understand it, we're building some 14 military bases there now, and some people say they've got a rather permanent concept to them.

When you guard the oil ministry, but you don't guard the nuclear facilities, the message to a lot of people is maybe, "Wow, maybe they're interested in our oil."

This is a key point. Ironically, the only way that the United States can be successful in Iraq is to show a determination to leave the country. The Iraqis have a strong nationalistic and religious feeling. They have a history of throwing out Western occupiers. I fear they will fight to the last man - as the Vietnamese did.

It is revealing that Kerry understands this and states that the United States must indicate to the Iraqi people that it does not intend to permanently occupy the country.

On the other hand, Bush's 'stay the course' philosophy and the installation of an American puppet, Dr. Iyad Alawi, an Iraqi exile with a long history with CIA, but little support within the country, sets United States, in Iraqi eyes, as an infidel occupation force.

If the United States has no long-range plans for occupying Iraq, why build these permanent bases? The answer is in the neo-conservative vision for Iraq.

Iraq is meant to be a bulwark of democracy against the Islamic extremism of countries like Iran. The logic in President Bush's statement that Iraq is the center of the "war on terrorism", despite the fact that there is no proof that Iraq had anything to do with the 9/11 attacks, indicates that the administration plans to use Iraq as a military base to make further attacks on nations that it believes further terrorists, including Iran.

This is a key difference between President Bush's foreign policy and Senator Kerry's. Kerry's policy would be a return to the standard American policy for the 20 years before this President Bush. That policy was one of containment, not confrontation. Kerry made that point saying that this was also the policy of President George W. Bush's father:

Now I believe there's a better way to do this. You know, the president's father did not go into Iraq, into Baghdad, beyond Basra. And the reason he didn't is, he said - he wrote in his book - because there was no viable exit strategy. And he said our troops would be occupiers in a bitterly hostile land.

So, the debates show a clear choice this election in foreign policy. You can support an aggressive foreign policy of staying the course in Iraq, which is rapidly becoming a quagmire and, potentially taking on Islamic countries, one by one. You can decide to send troops to Iraq and other countries with the idea that it is better to fight the terrorists them in the Middle East rather than the US.

Or you can choose to go back the policy of containment and diplomacy that was standard US policy for Bush's father and the previous administrations. That policy was pretty darn effective - leaving an Iraq that was not a threat to the United States and not supporting Al-Qaeda, at least before the invasion.

by John Legler, Guest Columnist
October 1, 2004