What can't easily be foretold is how exactly the Democrats in
2008 will get around to formulating a foreign policy on the shaky
legs of their pronouncements as enunciated in the years since
9/11. Hillary Clinton, John Kerry and John Edwards have problems
absorbing the postulates of policies-gone-by, when they
encouraged going into Iraq.
Consider just one derivative problem they face. If the defense
of Israel is accepted as an inflexible commitment, then the
health of the American military in the Mideast is a concern that
goes beyond merely the replacement of Saddam Hussein. If Iran,
Syria, Lebanon and Iraq evolve as a support system of radical
Islamist mobilization concentrating on the elimination of Israel,
friends of Israel can't be expected to ignore the consequences of
U.S. inertia in the Mideast.
Democratic policy for 2008 has to go a step further than mere
expressions of disapproval of President Bush. Yet anti-Bushism is
about the only plank of existing Democratic policy at this point.
Critics can counter and say that the Republican Party is itself
without strategic definition, and that indictment is better
winced at than denied. The Universal Emancipation Proclamation of
President Bush, as enunciated in his second inaugural address, is
going to leave candidates for political office in great
difficulty when explaining what it is the GOP wants to
accomplish.
Add to this problem the great big hole in Republican domestic
orientation. The record of the Bush administration in spending
and in advancing the social agenda leaves the Democrats with not
much room to position themselves as the party of social concern.
There isn't much left to advance after the GOP policies of No
Pimple Left Behind. The result is that Democratic strategists,
warming up this time around for the major stakes in 2008, haven't
any clear goal to associate themselves with. That's why we hear
nothing much more that clings to memory than that Bush and his
legions must be replaced.
So? Hate Bush. Is that truly enough as the agenda of the
Democratic Party?
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