Why the WaPo Endorsed Jim Webb's Opponent -- Iraq

By: Greg
Published On: 6/3/2006 9:47:58 PM

Yesterday, the Washington Post offered a rather tepid endorsement of Harris Miller for the Democratic nomination to challenge George Allen this fall for his Senate seat.  The editorial stressed Jim Webb's "somewhat strident populism on trade policy" as a reason for opposing him, but I think the real reason the Post decided to endorse Harris Miller lies elsewhere: the WaPo's ongoing support for the war in Iraq, and their disdain for Jim Webb's self-described "realist" foreign policy views.
While the Post offered some faint praise for Webb's "prescient" observations in 2002 about how the war in Iraq would play out in its endorsement of Miller, it's useful to take a look at the views of their editorial page editor, Fred Hiatt, on Iraq and foreign policy more broadly. It may still be true that the WaPo leans Democratic, but there is a strong neoconservative streak in their thinking, having acted as enablers for the War Party during the Bush administration's sales pitch for war back in late 2002, and having tried to de-legitimate debate about how we got into Iraq in the first place -- a debate I think is still relevant, since it speaks to the broader issue of when it is appropriate for the United States to use military force, and how the decision to do so should be made.

"After lagging for months debate on Iraq in Washington is picking up again. That's a needed and welcome development, but much of the discussion is being diverted to the wrong subject."

-- 6/15/2005 WaPo editorial, referring to the stir caused by the Downing Street documents

Hiatt and Jackson Diehl, his deputy on the editorial page staff, have both long been enamored of the neoconservative idea that the invasion of Iraq could produce a wholesale social and political transformation of the Middle East, and have spent the last few years going into increasingly ridiculous contortions trying to justify their support for the invasion, and grasping for straws to find support for the idea that, despite the current troubles we face, we have set something in motion in the region which will eventually bear fruit.

The first thing you might notice is that the Democrats implicitly reject almost everything the Bush administration says about how Sept. 11 changed the world, or our perception of it.

President Bush believes that the United States "is in the early years of a long struggle," according to his own national security strategy released last month, against "a new totalitarian ideology." To combat radical Islamist terrorism, he says, the United States must first and foremost offer better values, promoting democracy and opposing tyranny. It must be ready to take the fight to the enemy, including with preemptive action, because the nation can never be made safe only by guarding the homeland. And it must seek to ease the poverty that breeds hopelessness through "dramatically expanded" development aid and an emphasis on free markets and trade.

An opposition party could accept the goals but decry the administration's failure to reach them: the broken alliances, the screw-ups in Iraq, the lack of readiness illustrated by the pitiful response to Hurricane Katrina, the gulf between the rhetoric of human dignity and the record of torture and infringed liberty.

The Democrats do indeed attack the failures and promise an end to incompetence. But they also reveal a different world view, one that is far more cramped and inward-looking. While reassuring voters that they will keep "foreign interests" out of "our national security infrastructure" -- including "mass transit" -- the Democrats do not find space to mention democracy even once.

They promise to "destroy terrorist networks like al Qaeda," but there is no discussion of a broader threat, of a "global war" or a long Cold War-like struggle. They devote more space to homeland security than to anything else. There is no mention of preemptive action.

The document does promise, almost as an aside and without elaboration, to "lead international efforts to uphold and defend human rights" and to combat "the economic, social, and political conditions that allow extremism to thrive." But where Bush concluded from Sept. 11 that the acceptance of stable dictatorships in countries such as Egypt was ultimately self-defeating, Harry Reid of Nevada, the Democrats' leader in the Senate, told me that while "we of course acknowledge that democracy is our goal . . . we first have to have stability."

-- 4/3/2006 Op-Ed by Fred Hiatt on the Democrats' national security plan

So, what Hiatt is saying, to be very blunt about it, is that if you don't think forcefeeding the Muslim world a heaping dose of American "values" at gunpoint is the solution to the problem of terrorism, then you shouldn't be taken seriously.

The truth about the Iraqi government's formulation is that democracy cannot be forced upon a people from above, and particularly in a region that has never known democracy.  Tribal loyalties still prevail strongly in Iraq, and there is little we will be able to do to change that.

The better question to ask is whether our presence is helping to end an insurgency, or feeding it.

-- Jim Webb, blogging on Daily Kos, 5/26/2006

And that's why a candidate like Jim Webb gets under Fred Hiatt's skin, because if a member of the "reality based community" like Webb, who understands the shortcomings of the neoconservatives' grandiose Middle-East-transformation strategy, and who understands that "you cannot export values at the point of a gun," wins the Democratic nomination in a hotly contested primary against a better funded (mostly self funding...) opponent, a lot of other Democratic elected officials are going to notice, and it will help set the stage for a real debate on foreign policy within the party, at a time when some observers like Jacob Heilbrunn sense that neoconservative ideology is seeking a new host in the Democratic party, now that it has started to get some pushback from old-school Republicans.

...it is amusing to see that at the very moment when hawkish realists are trying to extirpate the neocon credo in the Republican Party, it's being revived in the Democratic Party that first brought it to life. -- Jacob Heilbrunn, LA Times, 5/28/2006

Jim Webb scares the c*** out of the neocons, because he has the credibility, experience, and most definitely the cojones, to take them on and win...  If we can get him through the primary on June 13th, things are going to get really really interesting...

Comments



Neoconned? (loboforestal - 6/4/2006 12:17:37 AM)
Whuh? you mean you can't outsource democracy, too? 


Amen! (Mimi Schaeffer - 6/4/2006 1:19:55 AM)
Through a personal encounter with Hiatt, I can vouch for the accuracy of your analysis.

He was a gung-ho to go to Iraq; and even after it was all to hell, he continued to support the war!



Oh and you hit the nail on the HEAD! (Mimi Schaeffer - 6/4/2006 1:22:25 AM)
Kudos to you, Greg.

You did the post I should have done if I hadn't been too lazy to look it all up!

Grrrreat job:)



RE: Interesting theory but (JPTERP - 6/4/2006 2:45:59 AM)
I think it was probably things like HB-1 Visas, economic policy and other non-issue related factors (e.g. Harris Miller might have been more nice to them).

Hiatt says that the Iraq issue is a legitimate one to support Jim Webb on; however, he feels that Miller and Webb's current positions are indistinguishable at this time point in time.  I don't believe Hiatt is correct on this second point--there is some distinction--but I'll grant it that the distinction isn't a sharp one (e.g. neither is calling for an immediate withdrawl).

As a secondary issue, I'm having a hard time buying the Washington Post-NeoCon connection. 

There's a good history about the NeoCon movement in George Packers "Assasin's Gate"--one of the better books about the Iraq invasion.  I don't believe Fred Hiatt was named as being part of PNAC (Project for New American Century).  PNAC, which was formed by some NeoCons after Gulf War I in the 1990s, is where a lot of these Iraq discussions started rolling. 

It's doubtful that the cabal of Richard Perle, Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, et al would ever have invited a member of the Washington Post staff (even a high level staff member like Hiatt) to be part of their regular membership.  Maybe I'm wrong, but this seems doubtful to me. 

You may be using the term in a much broader sense.  The distinction is important (e.g. the Washington Post did not form the U.S. Iraq Policy; they may have promoted it because they were persuaded by the rationale in 2003--as were a lot of people, even putting aside the issue of WMD--but they were not involved in discussions in the 1990s and in the period leading up to 2003 to formulate the Iraq strategy). 

Personally, I think that there was a reasonable argument in 2003 for promoting Democracy in the Middle East--even militarily.  The rise of al Quaida was due at least in part to our longstanding support of totalitarian regimes in the region.  Al Quaida provided an outlet for a lot of very frustrated, unemployed males who had absolutely no prospects.  So, at least in theory, toppling totalitarian regimes and setting up democratically elected governments seemed like a way of attacking this core problem at the root.  Iraq probably seemed like the best starting point (after Afghanistan) because of its political isolation.  Unfortunately, there were a number of realities on the ground that the NeoCons and many others never took into consideration. 



RE: One additional point (JPTERP - 6/4/2006 3:18:01 AM)
Hiatt also says that he didn't factor in the electability issue, which seems like a weak point to me.  This should have been mentioned in the editorial, because it's a relevant point in evaluating a candidate. 

In case you didn't see it in an early post, here was Hiatt's justification of the op-ed in response to an email that I sent to the Post Friday . . .

"The ombudsman forwarded your letter to me (the editorial page editor). I appreciate the thoughtfulness of your comments.

As you say, we did note Webb's early leadership on the Iraq question, and for some voters that may be the decisive factor, which I think is entirely legitimate. In terms of what policies they would advocate on Iraq now, I do not see much difference between the candidates.

You also discuss the question of electability. This too is a legitimate basis for voters to decide on--but I don't think it should be the basis of an editorial endorsement. Our job, as I see it, is to give our best assessment of who would be the better senator, and why. While respecting the achievements of both candidates, our assessment overall was as we stated. I know some readers will disagree; others may agree but make a different judgment based on who they think has the best shot in November.

Best,
Fred Hiatt"