Third Way Dispatch

In the past week, US-Iran relations have gone from a slow simmer to a roiling boil. Is this posturing and positioning in the run up to the May 28 bilateral talks in Baghdad, or is this the road to open warfare? Let’s look at the evidence.

The United States needs to get out of the war in Iraq. We should have never, never been in it in the first place. This war was a stupid idea, not just a badly executed idea.

That is my position. It is – and always has been – the position of Third Way. Well, actually Third Way did not exist when we got into this war. But I certainly know it was my position, and that of all four founders of this group. One of them, Matt Bennett, moved to Little Rock, Arkansas to work for Wes Clark’s campaign because he thought Clark was the best anti-war candidate. So let there be no doubt that Third Way’s team has opposed this war from the very beginning.

I really like David Broder. He almost always writes with common sense and clarity. He is one of the few political columnists with no obvious axe to grind and who brings genuine insight to a wide range of topics. And I’m grateful for the attention that he has given to Third Way’s products. I read him without fail.

And that’s why I almost fell off the exercise bike this morning when I read his column comparing Harry Reid to Alberto Gonzales.

In going after Harry Reid so viciously, Broder swings for the fences. But he whiffs badly.

Last week, as the news of the horror at Virginia Tech sank in around the world, Australia’s Prime Minister was quick to decry America’s “gun culture.” South Korean talk shows noted that the perpetrator was really an American, and that his violent act was no reflection on his South Korean roots. An Argentine newspaper opined that this was unsurprising in a nation that advocates the “use of violence to achieve liberty.”

Basically, the nations of the world have been quick to qualify their condolences with scorn, anger, accusations, and other unfriendly sentiments. What a contrast to the last major national tragedy on 9/11, when even the headlines in France read: “We Are All Americans Now.”

As is now painfully apparent, President Bush responded to the wake up call on Iraq that the voters delivered in November by hitting the snooze button. Firing Donald Rumsfeld, the barest minimum of a response that he could offer, was as far as he was willing to go. Since then, it’s been stay the course, as he’s simply ignored the will of the American people and reality on the ground. More of the same failed strategy, and still no plan from his Administration to end the war in Iraq and put America back on the offensive against al Qaeda and its allies.

On March 6th, Assistant Majority Leader in the Senate, Dick Durbin, joined Third Way co-chairs Senator Evan Bayh and Senator Tom Carper in releasing a new Third Way report, Beyond Bush: A New Strategy of Constriction to Defeat al Qaeda and its Allies.

“This report puts the emphasis of US national security back where it belongs, on Al Qaeda,” Senator Durbin said. “How you define a problem dictates the policy response.”

We couldn’t agree more.