Clark's opening salvos

Wes Clark is firing his opening salvos for 2008 today. He has a high-profile op-ed piece in this morning's Washington Post, he is going live with a 2:00 PM (ET) WaPo online chat session, and he's coordinated this with a mass emailing entitled "My thinking on Iraq."

Armando on Daily Kos was quick to praise Clark's relentless indictment of the Bush administration's incompetence in Iraq. From Clark's op-ed, "Before It's Too Late in Iraq":

The growing chorus of voices demanding a pullout should seriously alarm the Bush administration, because President Bush and his team are repeating the failure of Vietnam: failing to craft a realistic and effective policy and instead simply demanding that the American people show resolve. Resolve isn't enough to mend a flawed approach -- or to save the lives of our troops. If the administration won't adopt a winning strategy, then the American people will be justified in demanding that it bring our troops home.

It is important to note that Clark still holds out hope for success in Iraq if a "three-pronged strategy," involving diplomatic, political and military measures, is put in place--the sooner, the better.

Indeed, in his opening paragraph Clark says that while the initial invasion of Iraq was a mistake, "it would also be a mistake to pull out now, or to start pulling out or to set a date certain for pulling out."

Armando--and, we may assume, the DKos wing of the party--will have none of that. Frankly, if Clark wishes to be taken seriously by the increasing number of Democrats who favor withdrawal, he will have to explain why our continued occupation is not hurting the larger effort against terrorism as well as exacerbating the situation in Iraq.

On the same op-ed page in today's WaPo, E.J. Dionne quotes Kim Beazley, Australian Labor Party leader and former defense minister,  who recently addressed the Australian American Leadership Dialogue:

Beazley, who elaborated on his off-the record address in an interview, argued that the war in Iraq, like the Vietnam War 35 years ago, was "sucking the oxygen out of American foreign policy." The United States, he said, needed to engage in "a phased extraction" from Iraq while bolstering the war on terrorism elsewhere.

Whether Wes Clark's version of "stay the course, only make it a better course" is a product of his sincere beliefs based on experience or a calculated appeal to the remaining diehards who cannot contemplate defeat--or a little of both--it risks stranding Clark behind the building wave on both the left and right for disengagement from the Iraq quagmire.

Addendum: In re-reading this, I realize that Clark may be threading an exceedingly fine needle with his last graph, quoted at the top of the post. That is, absent some fundamental change of course by the Bush administration (hah!), Americans would be "justified" in demanding withdrawal from Iraq. But if Clark is trying to have it both ways here--predicting failure while outlining a course for success that he is in no position to implement--it's not talking about the future to me, but lamenting the past.

I agree with Digby (also here) and others who say Dems must make Bush and the Republicans own this war and its miserable failures. They must be called to account and pay politically. Detailed solutions from Democrats risk being counter-productive. Should any of those solutions be adopted down the line by Bush, we may be assured Dems will not be getting the credit for their brilliant ideas. The more Dems criticize Bush on Iraq, the deeper he digs his own hole. He can't help it, and we should be taking advantage of that dynamic.

My concern about Wes Clark has always been that while he's a brilliant intellectual, strategist, diplomat and leader, he must remember that when running for president he'll have to be a brilliant politician. That means don't help the other guy. Nixon got elected with a totally bogus "secret plan" to get us out of Vietnam. But even if he had a real plan, do you think he'd have advertised it?

Update: Just got another email from WesPac. Clark will be on Meet the Press this Sunday. Will he be able to make Timmeh roll over, sit up and beg? I hope so.

Update II: For a useful discussion of the pros and cons of the politics of fixing blame on Bush for Iraq and entertaining the idea of withdrawal, read this long post by Armando on DKos. It has numerous links to a range of opinion and debate on the matter.

Last Update, I promise (I think): Digby comments on Clark's op-ed and says, "Right on, Wes." He is of the opinion that Clark knows full well that any plan advanced by a Dem is academic, and therefore Clark is quite deliberately "laying a benchmark for Bush's failure" in what is a political, rather than policy, piece:

By the time any Democrats have a chance to implement any real plans for Iraq, Wes's plan will be moot. The doors that he sees as still being slightly open are closing very rapidly. The state of play in 2006 and 2008 is going to be very different. But it's useful for Wes Clark, retired General, to be on the record with an alternative in 2005 that clearly lays blame on the Bush administration and sets forth in exactly what ways they've failed -- militarily, politically and diplomatically.

I will freely admit I might have been overly sensitive to Clark's statements about the possibility of winning in Iraq. But that's why he's the General and I'm not.