The Munk Debates Page 2

  Fourth, you can expect a Republican president will continue to uphold the policies of non-engagement in the realm of diplomacy with America’s adversaries in the Middle East. And given the fact that stability in Iraq depends fundamentally on a regional solution and regional involvement, this is deeply worrying.

  Now I’d like to say something about Iraq and Iran, the two issues that Niall has also suggested will divide the candidates, Senator Obama and Senator Clinton on the one hand and Senator McCain on the other. First, on the issue of Iraq, you will hear an awful much this evening about the cost, and I want to say at the outset that these costs absolutely have to be considered. We have to do everything in our power to mitigate the cost in terms of the al Qaeda presence that has come to Iraq in the wake of the U.S. invasion — and, crucially, but too often left out of the domestic debate in the United States, the fate of Iraqis who have relied upon the promise of the American presence, many of whom have recoiled against that presence but all of whose destinies have been forever altered by that same presence. Consideration of human consequences in discussions of withdrawal is essential.

  You will hear much dogma about the inevitable effects of a U.S. withdrawal, and I think it’s worth remembering that the same people who will warn you dogmatically about the coming apocalypse are the same people who argued that American soldiers would be greeted with flowers and chocolates as liberators. John McCain himself said in September 2002, “We’re not going to have house-to-house fighting in Baghdad; we’re not going to have a bloodletting of trading American bodies for Iraqi bodies.” In January 2003, two months before the war, he said, “We will win this easily.” I’m not saying that this means that the warnings of harm to civilians or the warnings of Iraq can be discounted, as some progressives seem inclined to do. But one has to be careful about dogmatism in the realm of national security, especially in the wake of the recent record.

  So the costs of withdrawal have to be taken into account. I hope in this discussion we can talk about how to mitigate the harms associated with departure. But there is no acknowledgement, or very little acknowledgement, of the cost of staying, and we cannot look at Iraq in an à la carte fashion. We must look at the cost of staying to U.S. soldiers; to the recruitment of terrorists, both in the context of detainee policies and the occupation itself; the cost to Afghanistan and stability there; and, crucially, the cost to U.S. summoning power. When you look at public opinion polls about the United States, it’s tempting to view them simply as popularity contests — that is how they are parodied in certain circles in the U.S. But they are a measure of America’s ability to get what it wants in international institutions. It matters when you have a 5 percent approval rating in a country. Governments fear they will fall if they affiliate with the United States on crucial issues, and in the context of Iran. I think it is reckless at this stage not to embark upon every policy that we can in service of stability and in service of the mitigation that is suffering. That does not mean that you meet with an abusive regime, a holocaust denier, tomorrow. But it does mean that ruling out aggressive diplomatic engagement is reckless — precisely the kind of recklessness we’ve seen over the last seven years. Thank you.

  LYSE DOUCET: Now, for the motion, Charles Krauthammer.

  CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER: Thank you, Lyse. I’m sometimes asked to compare what I do today as a political analyst in Washington with what I did twenty-five years ago as a psychiatrist in Boston. I tell people, as you can imagine, that it’s really not that different. In both lines of work I deal on a daily basis with people who suffer from paranoia and delusions of grandeur, except that in Washington they have access to nuclear weapons, which makes the work a little more interesting because it raises the stakes.

  Ladies and gentlemen, the stakes are very high in the 2008 U.S. presidential election. That’s why we’re here to debate whether it would be better for the world, for the safety of the world, if a Republican or a Democrat were elected. And let me say that if the Democrat running for president were Harry Truman, I would be on the other side of this debate. But the former vice-presidential candidate for the Democratic party in the year 2000 said plaintively and with regret that the Democrats have abandoned the tradition of Roosevelt and Truman and Kennedy, who said in his inaugural address that America would pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardships, support any friend, oppose any foe in order to ensure the success and survival of liberty. Senator Joe Lieberman said he is the last Truman Democrat, and ostracized as he is from his own party, he chose to support John McCain as president because he sees McCain as the best guarantor of the security of the United States, and by extension of the safety of the world.

  Both the Democratic candidates and the Republican candidates have insisted that the single most important foreign affairs issue that the American people should choose a president on is the war in Iraq. As the Democrats have made extremely clear in their debates and in their statements, there is a stark difference between the two positions.

  The position of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama is unequivocal. On the day they are inaugurated as president, they will call in the Joint Chiefs of Staff and ask them to immediately prepare a plan for the evacuation of Iraq. Obama says the withdrawal will take place over sixteen months, but he will begin to remove combat troops almost immediately. The position of John McCain is diametrically opposed. On the day McCain is inaugurated, he will bring into his office the Joint Chiefs of Staff and ask them to provide a plan to try to achieve success in Iraq. And by success I would refer to what General David Petraeus said in his testimony last week to Congress: he defines success in Iraq as an Iraq that is at peace with itself and its neighbours, an ally in the war on terror, and with a government that serves all Iraqis.

  In 2006, when the war in Iraq was at its lowest ebb, America had essentially lost its way; the Democrats concluded that the war was lost. They said so, the majority leader in the Senate said so, the House Speaker said the war is lost. The Democrats ran an off-year election pledging to withdraw American troops unconditionally, regardless of conditions on the ground, and they won a smashing electoral victory. Ever since then their position has remained unshaken — that is the position of the party, the position of their leaders, and the position of the President of the United States if a Democrat is elected. The problem is that the situation on the ground has changed in the last two years, and the Democrats refuse to accept the empirical evidence of the astonishing changes on the ground in Iraq.

  Essentially, when al Qaeda had conquered Anbar Province, a secret CIA report at the time had declared Anbar lost. Al Qaeda has since been driven out of Anbar, and the Sunnis have changed sides in the civil war, and joined with the United States. There are 80,000 Sunni civilians who are on joint neighbourhood patrols, armed and supported by the United States. Al Qaeda is on the run. Its last redoubt is in Mosul, and the Iraqi army has launched a campaign in Mosul against the organization. This is an extremely important event in the war on terror.

  We did not seek a war with al Qaeda and Iraq. But al Qaeda had decided that after the fall of Saddam Hussein, they had an opportunity to strike at the United States and declare Iraq as the central front in the war on terror. It was their understanding that the war in Iraq would be the great challenge to the United States, and for a year and a half it looked as if they were succeeding. They are now on the run. If America stops, as the Democrats advocate, if they give up the war and allow al Qaeda to re­establish themselves in Anbar, in Baghdad, and elsewhere, it will be a catastrophic defeat for the United States and the world, taken out of the jaws of victory.

  Al Qaeda is now at the point where, if it were defeated, as it is on the way to being defeated in Iraq, it will be a humiliation for Osama bin Laden and his cohorts. They have declared Iraq the central war front, recruited Sunnis, co-religionists, and co-sectarians aggrieved against the United States. And they will have witnessed their own co­-religionist joining with the infidel against them and defeating them.

  T
hat is an extremely important event in the war on terror. Iraq would be entirely in jeopardy were America to withdraw, and, as a collateral effect, the central government, which is the one hope for a reasonable democratic representative government in the region struggling to establish itself, would collapse. Abandoning Iraq would not only lead to a humanitarian disaster, it would be a strategic catastrophe, self-inflicted unnecessarily, and that’s why America must elect John McCain, who will not allow that to happen.

  LYSE DOUCET: Now against the motion, Ambassador Richard Holbrooke.

  RICHARD HOLBROOKE: I am honoured to be part of this panel with my friend and colleague Samantha Power. She and I are supporting different candidates in the primaries, but we will be united behind the Democratic nominee. We also share our firm opposition to this resolution, which we’re debating tonight.

  I’m also pleased to debate such worthy antagonists as Charles Krauthammer, the author of the famous 1990 article on foreign affairs, which proclaimed the post–Cold War era was America’s unipolar moment. Things seemed not to work out as precisely as he predicted. And Niall Ferguson, a man for all seasons, whom I hope, trust, and expect will see the error of his ways next year when the Democrats will listen to their critics. And I speak as someone who served every Democratic president from Kennedy on. We take seriously what other people say, unlike the current administration.

  The question before the house tonight is simple: Is the world a safer place with a Republican in the White House? Based on the record of the last seven years, our opponents tonight want you to believe that, having weakened the United States throughout the world, their party should be given another chance. One of the two bases his position solely on the fact that he’s behind John McCain, or he wouldn’t be here tonight. The other says he would only be on the other side if the Democrat were Harry Truman. Charles, regarding Harry Truman, if he were running today, he’d be even older than McCain. The current administration has done nothing on climate change, and they have mismanaged Afghanistan, an internationally supported effort in which Canada has borne a disproportionate burden.

  When I was in Afghanistan last month, NATO commander General [Dan] McNeill went out of his way to praise Canada, and I commend the bipartisan efforts of the Canadian government to extend their participation to 2012. But in order to be worthy of your confidence, the United States and its allies must change its strategy in Afghanistan.

  The Bush administration has allowed Iran to grow into a major international threat. They’ve watched North Korea go from one nuclear weapon to six to ten, based on the estimates. They have watched and presided over a long, steady decline in America’s standing throughout most of the world, from our allies to our adversaries. They have allowed America to be defined by the most abhorrent events. Words that have entered the English language in the international lexicon as shorthands for something that does not represent our great nation: Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, torture. This administration openly opposed the bills banning torture in the Congress, and presided over a spectacular decline in the strength of the dollar and the weakening of our economic position internationally. They’ve done far too little to deal with dictators in desperate places such as Burma, Zimbabwe, Sudan, and elsewhere — and you’ll notice I haven’t yet mentioned Iraq.

  The Republican argument is quite simple. It’s based entirely on fear. Fear of the Democrats, misrepresentations of their past, and misrepresentations of their current positions. They say, “We have messed up Iraq so far, but we can’t let the Democrats take over because they’ll make it worse.” That is the core of the two arguments you’ve heard from my distinguished colleagues. Yet all they offer is more of the same, particularly when it comes to Iraq. I do want to note, however, that Senator McCain is the only Republican who has said that climate change is an important issue and, therefore, will be a major change in his policy.

  Although the candidates do differ on important details, on the key issue that Charles Krauthammer has focused on, Iraq, there are tremendous differences. In my view, Iraq will be the defining issue of this election. I respectfully do not agree with Niall that the main issue during this election will be the economy, for a simple political reason: those people who will vote based on the economy have already made up their mind, and that will favour the Democrats. The undecided voters will be faced with exactly the choice Charles posed, although I respectfully disagree with his conclusions.

  Now here is what the two Democrats still standing — Senator Hillary Clinton and Senator Barack Obama — have said: both say that they will withdraw combat troops in an orderly and careful manner shortly after taking office. The Pentagon says this would take twelve to sixteen months at a minimum, given the difficulty. You can’t go through Basra anymore, which is being taken over by the Iranians. And let’s be clear on that: Iran is taking over Basra, though it’s unreported by the press. So the troops will have to get out by air through Turkey. It will be very difficult, so it will be done very carefully.

  Neither of the two Democratic candidates have given a certain date for full withdrawal of all American military personnel in Iraq, notwithstanding the impression of deliberateness put forward by our two worthy opponents. Both have said that if it’s the right thing to do, they would leave an unspecified residual presence to deal with the very terrorist problem that Charles Krauthammer referred to — a problem which he neglected to mention did not exist before the invasion of Iraq and which was caused by the chaos created by the policy he so strongly supported. Both Senator Clinton and Senator Obama have said, “Put Iraq in a regional contest and bring in the neighbours.” The bad news is that one of those neighbours is Iran. But to settle and stabilize Iraq you must have a political solution. You can’t do it militarily, and this political effort has never been seriously tried by the Bush administration.

  LYSE DOUCET: Thank you. So Iraq is the defining issue. General Petraeus, probably the best person to tell us what’s happening in Iraq, describes the situation there so far as fragile and reversible. Charles Krauthammer has already declared victory: astonishing success, astonishing changes. Niall Ferguson, the same: the surge has proved the Cassandras wrong. It’s sort of McCain-esque declaring victory in Iraq.

  CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER: That is a lovely misrepresentation of our position.

  LYSE DOUCET: “Astonishing changes” — I quote you, Charles Krauthammer.

  CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER: The changes are astonishing because no one anticipated that al Qaeda would be driven out of Anbar.

  LYSE DOUCET: And into the Diyala Province and Baghdad.

  CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER: Al Qaeda is not in Diyala or Baghdad; they’re in Mosul. Now, astonishing changes have occurred, and it is precisely because they are fragile and precisely because they are reversible. The idea of withdrawing on a timetable, regardless of conditions on the ground, is a prescription for disaster. The difference between the Democrats and McCain is that McCain says he wants to try and entertain withdrawals, but only on conditions that meet our requirements, only if conditions on the ground allow it, because the situation is reversible and fragile. It is precisely because there is not a fait accompli that we have not declared victory. The difference between now and 2006 is that in 2006 you could have plausibly argued that the war was either lost or unwinnable; you cannot plausibly argue either side right now. The Democrats have persisted in a policy based on the assumption that it is easier lost or unwinnable, and they are impervious to the empirical evidence to the contrary.

  LYSE DOUCET: Well, why is it that John McCain seems to be the only Vietnam War veteran in the Senate who has reached the conclusion that you can win this war, that by sending in more troops and staying longer the United States and its allies ultimately prevail?

  NIALL FERGUSON: This actually illustrates a critical issue, namely that McCain has consistently underskewed the character of this war. There was no house-to-house fighting in Baghdad; it was exactly as he foresaw. In 2004, he said there are not enough troops in Iraq, and we’re going to
lose control. In 2005, he was extremely critical of the way Donald Rumsfeld was handling the situation. One of the points that McCain has made is that we have already tried troop reductions, and the results were absolutely calamitous. When we brought the troop levels back up at the end of 2005, the violence dropped, just as McCain predicted, and I don’t think “astonishing” is the wrong word. Look at the data from the Brookings Institute. The monthly death toll, as a result of troop reductions, went up to four thousand fatalities. From four thousand to a thousand casualties a month is a major breakthrough. That is not defeat, and in that sense I think McCain has been consistently right.

  LYSE DOUCET: You know Senator Obama well, Samantha Power. When was the last time Obama was in Baghdad?

  SAMANTHA POWER: 2006.

  LYSE DOUCET: He doesn’t go there a lot, though; John McCain has been there many times, Hillary Clinton has been there many times. If Iraq is the supreme challenge, why should we entrust the future of Iraq to him?

  SAMANTHA POWER: Obama is the only mainstream candidate — and certainly the only candidate left in the race — who opposed the war in Iraq back in October 2002. If you go back to his speech in October 2002, it is not filled with anti-war jargon, nor is it the statement of some ideologue trying to pander to a progressive sector of the purple state of Illinois. Obama actually foresaw the difficulties, very much unlike John McCain — who did say, Niall, we will win the war easily two months before the war began.