Blog Credo

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.

H.L. Mencken

Saturday, April 4, 2015

Feed The War Pig

Hillary Clinton has two major drawbacks among the Progressive Left.  She is too close to Wall Street, and she has a history of hawkishness.  The reason she was not elected in 2008 is largely about her support for the Iraq War Resolution in 2003.  That gave Obama the opening he needed.

Of course, when compared to whomever the GOP will vomit forth, Hillary will be Elizabeth Warren melded with Noam Chomsky.

The Iran nuclear agreement is a great place to start.  The GOP has basically made Binyamin Netanyahu their Secretary of State and National Security Adviser already.  And their joint position can be boiled down to this:

1) Iran can't be allowed a nuclear program of any kind, because they are untrustworthy.

2) Negotiations are pointless, because... untrustworthy.

3) Somehow we will still magically prevent Iran from getting a weapon, without negotiating.

Of course, you don't "negotiate" with your friends.  You do so with your adversaries.  And the Iran deal is a really, really good deal for the rest of the world.  If they can hammer out the sanctions relief soon, they can basically end Iran's pursuit of nuclear weaponry.

But the GOP is pretty much  resorting to their Oppositional Defiance Disorder when comes to Obama.

What will be interesting to see - Clinton has already come out in favor of the deal - is whether anyone's vote will be changed by the GOP's increasing bellicosity.

If it is Clinton v Bush, then Dubya's Mideast adventures might become fertile ground for a difference between the two.  I have a hunch by the fall of 2016, ISIS will be collapsing.  And I can't imagine foreign policy will have a massive impact on the election anyway.

But if the GOP becomes the party of war, it makes Clinton's relative hawkish past seem much less relevant to the "Democratic Base" that currently is holding her at arm's length.

No comments: