How We Win On National Security

Regarding the presidential race, the general election season starts after today’s primary in Wisconsin (or, at the latest after Super Tuesday on March 2, 2004).

I watched Ronald Reagan’s team closely, and from them I learned that repetition of a message is key. Here are two related national security themes that regular Americans should continue to hit until John Kerry is elected:

1)  Our failure to find WMD in Iraq shows definitively that Democratic policies and Democratic leadership in the 1990s succeeded in disarming Iraq. The patient, tough, unsexy, non headline-grabbing policy of containment and engagement with the United Nations and the international community defanged Saddam and if we return to it, can continue to keep America safe.

We need a return to tough, patient, leadership to accomplish this. What we do not need is more headline-grabbing, ally-alienating, family score-settling invasions to remove tyrants already disarmed by Bill Clinton’s leadership and tough, patient cooperation with our international allies and the United Nations.

2)  The military built by Democratic policies and Democratic leadership from 1993 until 2001 performed magnificently in Iraq. The Iraq war was the wrong war for many reasons, and the peace has been botched, but one thing the war has shown is that the Democrats’ hard, patient work in the 1990s, while the Republicans were writing the Starr Report discussing identifying characteristics of the president’s genitalia, gave this nation the best military the world has ever seen. With a battle-tested veteran and war hero like John Kerry at the helm, the hard, tough, patient, non-sexy work of keeping America safe and strong can resume.

Bottom line: On national security and terrorism, we need to reinstate patriotic American values such as toughness and patience — in other words, real leadership — not right-wing values.

Posted by Lead Balloons at February 17, 2004 09:42 AM | TrackBack

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