Some 63 percent of Americans oppose the Iraq war, according to the latest NEWSWEEK poll , and they deserve better from their president than a calculated verbal assault that calls them appeasers and Fascist sympathizers. This is a new low for Bush, but not surprising given his family history. The Bushes, father and son, traditionally run viciously negative campaigns to win elections. With polls showing the Democrats poised to win control of the House and possibly the Senate, the Bushies are ramping up the rhetoric to smear the opposition.
Bush apparatchiks are good at the politics of destruction. John McCain still carries the wounds from the character attacks they launched against him in South Carolina in 2000. Bush 41 demolished Democrat Michael Dukakis in 1988 by assailing his patriotism and calling him weak on crime. This latest launch of pusillanimous rhetoric is designed to distract from the Katrina anniversary stories and get people talking about the one issue where the Republicans have a fighting chance, the wider war against terrorism. In the GOP playbook, Iraq becomes a footnote and what to do about the nuclear threat posed by Iran becomes the new crisis du jour .
An off-year election without a presidential candidate on the ballot is about turn out, which side can rev up more of its supporters to come to the polls. Conservatives right now feel pretty lackluster about Bush and the Republican Congress. The energy is on the Democratic side. What better way to alter that equation than to generate fears that Democrats are weak on national security and will talk and talk while Iran and the crazy mullahs get the bomb. The tough language could get out the conservative vote in November, and it’s also laying the groundwork for a possible attack on Iran. The same people who beat the war drums for invading Iraq are now leading the way within the administration and in the media for a preemptive strike in Iran. Crazy as it sounds with U.S. troops mired in Iraq, it could happen. “I’ve been in the camp that thinks they’re not that nuts to bomb these guys,” says Matt Bennett with Third Way, a centrist Democrat group. “But I’ve talked to a lot of senior smart Democrats who think they are that nuts.”
Whether the administration and its allies are serious or bluffing, who knows? But it feels like we’ve been down this road before. Getting even weak sanctions through the U.N. Security Council will be hard, and Bush has no patience for diplomatic dithering. The temptation to bomb will be there despite what we should have learned about the limitations of air power in Israel’s misguided assault on Hizbullah. There’s no way to hit all the sites in Iran even if we had good intelligence. Bombing would do little real damage of the nuclear infrastructure while inflicting a huge number of civilian casualties. The blowback would be enormous with everything from attacks on oil tankers in the Gulf to terrorist assaults in America.
The administration’s terror talk is at odds with expert opinion that says Iran is five to 10 years away from acquiring the bomb. A new report by the International Atomic Energy Agency is expected to describe only “slow progress” in Iran’s ability to enrich uranium. But when U.N. weapons inspectors did not find evidence to back claims about Iraq’s possession of weapons of mass destruction, the Bush administration didn’t believe them and even accused the inspectors of being in cahoots with the Iraqis. It is unlikely Bush would attempt to attack Iran before the November election, but he’ll make the willingness to undertake military action one of the bright lines between Republicans and Democrats. Senate Republicans are also ginning up a package of bills that will force Democrats to vote yes or no on such White House goodies as wiretapping. Those who refuse to give Bush blanket approval will get slapped with the charge “soft on terror.” It’s the Max Cleland strategy of ‘06. Former Georgia Senator Cleland remains the cautionary lesson for Democrats. He voted against an early version of the Homeland Security Department in order to protect workers’ benefits and was defeated in ‘02 on grounds of being insufficiently patriotic—despite being a Vietnam veteran and a triple amputee.
Even if the numbers are looking good for Democrats, never underestimate their ability to seize defeat and hold on to it tightly. Of course, Bush lost a war we didn’t have to fight and shouldn’t have lost—and he’s saying the Democrats don’t understand the stakes. Tragedy or comedy, it’s Shakespearean.
