To take liberties with T. S. Eliot, April was the cruelest month for John Kerry. He was on the defensive the entire time, wilting under a barrage of negative Bush advertising, responding ineffectively to a series of Republican-manufactured, press-trumpeted pseudo-controversies (SUV ownership? Medals or ribbons? Does anyone care?), and failing to gain traction with his messages on job growth, homeland security, and–most crucially–salvaging the increasingly perilous situation in Iraq.
Of course, April was a bad month for the president as well. His Iraq policy went bust–or, more accurately, boom. The gap between reality on the ground there and infallible Antinomian-in-Chief George W. Bush’s faith-based pronouncements–“And so we’re making progress, you bet. There’s a strategy toward freedom” is how God’s self-selected interlocutor put it on April 30–approached pathologically wide dimensions. One hundred thirty-six American troops died in April, the worst month of the war so far, Shiite bad boy Sadr remained free in Najaf (remember the good old days when Bush & Co. were still talking tough about bringing him to justice?), and in Falluja the Marines signed off on re-Ba’athification(!) and retreat.
The situation will likely get worse. Fifteen more U.S. soldiers died in the first two days of May. Worst of all, the release of the graphic photographs of leering American soldiers torturing, sexually abusing (and murdering, according to the New Yorker) Iraqi prisoners in Saddam’s notorious Abu Ghraib prison, promptly broadcast all over the Arab world, spells the bitter end to the neocon fantasy of planting Jeffersonian democracy in the heart of the Middle East. A recent USA Today/CNN/Gallup poll showed 71 percent of Iraqis considered Americans “occupiers” and 57 percent wanted U.S. troops out immediately. And that was before Sadr’s uprising, before Falluja, before Abu Ghraib. Ordinary Iraqis’ tolerance for American occupation is gone; we have lost the battle for hearts and minds. Violence will only intensify.
With all of that, Kerry should be destroying Bush, but he’s not. Bush’s approval rating slipped to 46 percent according to a New York Times/CBS News poll released April 29, but he nonetheless pulled ahead 43-41 (Nader draws 5 percent). Commentators ascribe this to a (temporary) rally-round-the-flag upsurge as Iraq implodes. Perhaps. But it’s also increasingly obvious that Kerry isn’t offering a distinctive enough alternative on Iraq, one that has a chance of quickly restoring some semblance of stability so we can declare victory and get the hell out, which is what voters increasingly want.
Kerry has a plan, which he laid out (again) at his April 30 speech at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri. His three key ideas: Bring in NATO to share security responsibility, bring in a UN-appointed international high commissioner to handle governance and reconstruction, and ramp up efforts to build an Iraqi security force. “This moment in Iraq is a moment of truth,” he intoned. “Not just for this administration, the country, the Iraqi people, but for the world. This may be our last chance to get this right.”
Great, except for two problems. First, now that Bush’s cowboy-unilateralist strutting has so obviously backfired, the president is already quietly trying something similar, without discernible effect. Second, Kerry’s ideas are a year out of date. Even as late as April 1, his plan seemed plausible, but it’s too little, too late now. Kerry still clings to the notion that the arbitrary and symbolic June 30 transfer of sovereignty, if managed correctly, could lead to better days. It’s a false hope. The entire premise of June 30 was to create a face-saving way to draw down American troops in Iraq, thus reducing the incitement to violence, and that won’t happen now.
There are only two plausible (if risky) solutions for Iraq: escalation or partition. The first is domestic political suicide. The second appears increasingly unavoidable. Partitioning Iraq will be ugly, but the status quo is untenable. If Kerry wants to win, he needs to get ahead of the curve by clearly advocating a plan, complete with clearly delineated exit strategy, to achieve a quick three-state solution. That would require leadership, though, and so far all we’ve been seeing from Kerry is timidity and nuance. He made his political bones during Vietnam by boldly asking, “How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?” It’s the question he ought to be asking himself now.
CORRECTION: Last week I cavalierly rewrote history, claiming that John Edwards lost South Carolina. Actually, he won. Evidently I was too sober last week, a moral failing I have expeditiously moved to rectify.
