Wesley Clark Speaks on Iran

General Wesley Clark hasn't announced yet that he's running again but he spoke at the DNC meeting and was well received. Here's an excerpt from an article on a speech he gave at UCLA in late January:

In his State of the Union address last month, President Bush emphasized that Iraq would be overrun by extremists if more U.S. troops were not sent there. Gen. Wesley K. Clark (Ret.), who campaigned against Bush in the run-up to the 2004 presidential election, wholeheartedly agrees.

But no amount of military intervention in Iraq can work without equal emphasis on robust diplomacy and political initiatives in the strife-torn nation, Clark said in a Jan. 22 lecture on the eve of Bush's national address.

(snip)

The bipartisan Iraq Study Group has recommended drawing down troops, Clark pointed out. But the group's recommendations are widely seen as "an admission of failure — and it's made Iraq even more triumphalist than it has already been."

Globally, he noted, the prestige and power of the United States are hanging in the balance. U.S. generals in Iraq have doubtless erred, but the Bush administration has made mistakes that are not only far more grievous but have "contributed to our continuing difficulties in our war on terror," said Clark, who commanded the 1999 NATO-led campaign in Kosovo.

The administration's biggest mistake, he elaborated, was the failure to appreciate the importance of law and the concept of legitimacy in the conduct of American affairs abroad.

Legitimacy is an issue that many Americans still do not appreciate. Launching a war on false premises does not usually lead to a nation being better appreciated by other nations. As we have seen, Bush's reckless plunge into war has damaged our foreign policy.

I was against the war in Iraq but once it was launched even most opponents of the war, myself included, hoped that it would go quickly and be done. Of course many of us did not know that the Bush Administration was seriously thinking of going after more countries after Iraq. The enormity of Bush's strategic blunder is going to take many years to fully understand.

Of course, conventional journalists like David Broder seem to have trouble catching up to the world these days or being skeptical when his right wing friends sell him a load of nonsense. Broder recently said that Democrats don't appreciate Wesley Clark. That of course is ridiculous. Along with Bill Richardson and Joe Biden, Wesley Clark is among the Democrats with the most foreign policy experience. Who wouldn't listen to Clark? Editor & Publisher has the story on Broder:

David Broder's comment about what Democrats allegedly think of the military drew an angry reaction.

"One of the losers in the [Democratic National Committee's] weekend oratorical marathon was retired Gen. Wesley Clark, who repeatedly invoked the West Point motto of 'Duty, Honor, Country,' forgetting that few in this particular audience have much experience with, or sympathy for, the military," Broder wrote in a column syndicated yesterday by the Washington Post Writers Group.

A writer for "The Carpetbagger Report" site responded: "I expect these kinds of dishonest smears from Limbaugh, Hannity, and O’Reilly, but Broder is supposed to be credible and serious. Why take such a gratuitous shot at the entire Democratic Party? Why intentionally perpetuate a right-wing lie? Why libel a political party with an observation that’s the opposite of the truth?"

The site noted that Clark's remarks were received warmly by the audience, and added: "(H)ow long will Dems have to put up with such transparent nonsense about the party not supporting the troops? How many war heroes -- Kerry, Murtha, Webb, Cleland, etc. -- have to become Democratic champions before Broder and his brethren give up on such ugly lies? How many more veterans have to come home from Iraq and Afghanistan, and then join the 'Fighting Dems,' before this myth has been debunked to Broder’s satisfaction? ... "

Republicans have nothing to run on. The biggest danger to Democrats in the next two years will be the fictions that Republicans can get people like Broder or Lou Dobbs (the fiction about Pelosi) to take seriously. When it comes to ideas, today's Republicans are bankrupt. They are desperate. Broder ought to be ashamed of himself to fall for such nonsense. George W. Bush and Dick Cheney did what they could to stay out of the war in Vietnam while Kerry and Cleland and others served. You would think Broder would understand that by now.