Rebutting Kuttner

Robert Kuttner has written a Boston Globe op-ed that deserves fisking so let's get started:

Henninger writes, "Getting on a US airliner, who would you rather have in the Senate formulating policy towards this threat, Ned Lamont or Joe Lieberman?"

This isn't debatable for thinking people. Ned Lamont isn't just a liberal; he's totally clueless on foreign policy issues. Anyone who says that we should use more aggressive diplomacy to get Iran to give up its nuclear weapons ambitions shouldn't be taken seriously. EVER.

We will face this story line between now and the November election and beyond: As the terror threat rises, you can't trust critics of the Bush administration to keep America safe. The war in Iraq, the nuclear designs of Iran, Hezbollah's rocketing of Israel, new diabolical tactics by Al Qaeda, and the general ideological and military menace of militant Islamism, are all jumbled into a single all-purpose word, waronterror. And if you're against the Bush strategy, you are of course with the terrorists.

Mr. Kuttner thinks that disagreement with the Bush administration's fight against the terorrists is what this is about. It isn't. It's that Ned Lamont doesn't have a clue about the Middle East. His statements prove it. Here's Lamont's perspective of the Middle East:

We lost focus on a far more important matter: achieving a peaceful settlement of disputes between Israel and its neighbors. That break with traditional American foreign policy is at the center of our problems in the region today. The Middle East is far less secure because of our war in Iraq. Lebanon is again part of the battlefield. Syria and Iran are in position to broaden the conflict.

That's breathtakingly ignorant analysis. How on God's green earth does Lamont think that we were ever within reach of true Middle East peace? Just because Arafat was a frequent visitor to the White House doesn't mean peace between Israel and the PA was ever achievable. Arafat negotiated in bad faith, often hoping to get a proposal in writing from which he would begin the next round of negotiations to get more Israeli concessions.

Here's something that Mr. Lamont hasn't learned about Arafat's intifada:

"The Al-Aqsa Intifada emphasizes these principles and axioms. Whoever thinks that the Intifada broke out because of the despised Sharon's visit to the Al-Aqsa Mosque, is wrong, even if this visit was the straw that broke the back of the Palestinian people. This Intifada was planned in advance, ever since President Arafat's return from the Camp David negotiations, where he turned the table upside down on President Clinton. [Arafat] remained steadfast and challenged [Clinton]. He rejected the American terms and he did it in the heart of the US."

"My visit here in South Lebanon is a clear message to the Zionist enemy. We say: Just as the national and Islamic Resistance in South Lebanon taught [Israel] a lesson and made it withdraw humiliated and battered, so shall [Israel] learn a lesson from the Palestinian Resistance in Palestine. The Palestinian Resistance will strike in Tel-Aviv, in Ashkelon, in Jerusalem, and in every inch of the land of natural Palestine. Israel will not have a single quiet night. There will be no security in the heart of Israel..."

"This Intifada was planned in advance, ever since President Arafat's return from the Camp David negotiations." Does that sound like peace was ever Arafat's intent? Lamont doesn't know enough about the Middle East to even grasp the basics, much less make foreign policy statements. In short, he isn't even qualified to be a low-level Senate staffer.

Lamont's statement that "Lebanon is again part of the battlefield" is naive at best. It wasn't until the Iraqi elections on January 30, 2005 that Lebanon got inspired to not live with Syria running a puppet government. It wasn't until Syria's assassination of Rafiq Harriri that the Cedar Revolution started. Lebanon was "part of the battlefield" since its civil war that left a Syrian puppet regime in place.

Here's a litany of Kuttner's complaint questions:

• Did Al Qaeda have any connection to Saddam Hussein? (No.) ( ed.- Mr. Kuttner should get himself a copy of this Stephen Hayes book before stating that al Qaida didn't have any connections with Saddam. )
• Was Bush's Iraq war a debilitating diversion of attention and resources from the more important ongoing battle against Al Qaeda? (Yes.) ( ed.- How did we catch Khalid Sheikh Muhammad then? )
• Did Bush spend most of 2001 blowing off warnings about Al Qaeda, shutting out people like national security official Richard Clarke who actually knew something about terrorism, and ignoring escalating warnings of a plot in progress? (Yes.) ( ed.- didn't Condi thoroughly discredit Clarke's self-congratulatory testimony? That's what I thought when I watched them testify. )
• Has the Iraq war made America a more effective force for stability and against militant Islamism? (No.) (ed.- What strategy would've produced more stability in the Middle East? )
• Did Bush's grand strategy advance the cause of Middle East democracy and civility? (No.) ( ed.- Would Mr. Kuttner prefer that we try innumerable rounds of diplomacy that just by terrorist-sponsoring nations more time to build nastier weapons? )
• Does Bush's larger design for the Middle East make Israel more secure? (No.) ( ed.- Will anything? Seriously, why does Mr. Kuttner think that Israel will be secure when it's surrounded by hostile neighbors? )

Supposedly, Democrats' qualms about illegal domestic spying ordered by Bush would disable such counterintelligence. That's nonsense. The USA Patriot Act, expanding surveillance, was passed by overwhelming bipartisan majorities.

Mr. Kuttner is right that the original Patriot Act passed with overwhelming bipartisan majorities. He omits the fact that Democrats in both the House and Senate did their best to kill the Patriot Act when parts of it came up for renewal. Let's hope that Mr. Kuttner hasn't forgotten Harry Reid bragging that "We just killed the Patriot Act."

I also reject Mr. Kuttner's characterization of the NSA's TSP as "domestic wiretapping." He knows that the intercepts were international in nature. He should be embarassed for using that discredited Democratic talking point in an article.

So, to answer Henninger: Getting on an airplane, I'd much rather have Lamont in the Senate, and either Democrats or traditional foreign-policy Republicans in the Congressional majority and the White House.

Thankfully, we won't have to worry about such a combination anytime soon. The American people told us in 2004 that they trusted Republicans, especially President Bush, more than Kerry and the Democrats. They'll tell us the same message this November.

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Posted Sunday, August 13, 2006 1:25 AM

July 2006 Posts

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