Yet Another Democratic Senator Makes His Own Foreign Policy

The Democrats' noise machine has pivoted neatly after the last two weeks of reasonably good news on the improving security situation in Iraq. The new message is that the military situation is fine: it is the political situation that is out of control. This is quite a shift for some, but not so much for Senator Levin, who has always emphasized the failure of Iraqi legislators to make any headway in solving internal disputes and passing critical legislation.

In that regard he is quite correct, though it should be remembered that the Iraqi government is only a year and a half old. Senator Levin's mistake is that he believes that since a military solution cannot work by itself, it is not needed at all. I think just a little thought on the matter would lead one to the administration's position: the political solution cannot be achieved without the military solution. The political process will only work when politics carries more weight than violence and thuggery.

But so convinced is the good Senator of the import of his own opinion, that he is scheduling a trip to Iraq to tell them how he feels:

The chairman of the U.S. Senate Armed Services committee said he was leaving Wednesday for Iraq to tell its leaders that they must accept responsibility for their country.

It's always nice to see members of Congress taking foreign policy into their own hands. No consultation with the State Department or the President - just Senator Levin going out to lay some mindthoughts on the Iraqis. Gee, now I want to go and tell them all about my personal foreign policy. Or maybe we could all just email them and let them know about our 300 million individual foreign policies.

But there's oh so much more Leviny goodness...

Let's start with a little Levin-style revisionist election spin:

Levin, who last visited Iraq in October, said American voters in the November congressional election "spoke forcefully" about wanting to change course in the war and gave Democrats power in Congress to accomplish this.

Uh yeah. As has been pointed out many times, while the war was a factor in the election, it wasn't the only factor. Several Republican campaigns imploded (I counted six in Congress, not including "macaca"), and exit polls showed that ethics concerns were the leading problem for Republican candidates. Many of the votes were very close; that night in November could easily have looked very different.

Levin is kidding himself and the public with his fantasy of a clear mandate.

And finally we have this:

"I'm going to try to see if we can't shift the attention of the American people from the report on the military situation to a report on the political situation since everybody acknowledges that it's the failure of the political arena and the political areas that are the cause of the ongoing violence in Iraq," said Levin, who is taking his eighth trip to Iraq since the war began.

I'll bet he's going to try to shift the attention of the public. We've had good news on the military situation for what? two weeks? maybe three? The recently evolving military situation is changing both the perception of the Iraqi people and the power dynamics in the Iraqi government, so waiting a bit to see how these changes play out makes sense. But threatened by even this fledgling prospect of success, Levin is rushing off to Iraq to make sure we focus on failure.

And to what end? Lecturing the Iraqis on their responsibilities and threatening them with our withdrawal is neither diplomatic nor constructive. If Senator Levin was truly interested in resolving this problem, he would be working through the executive branch to help the administration guide the Iraqis to a more stable and productive government. But a success-oriented solution is not in his interest - he is interested only in laying the blame at the feet of the Iraqi government so that he can justify his withdrawal.

People like Levin like to point to current polls showing majority disapproval of the war as justification for their position. But we made a commitment to the Iraqi people in March 2003, when the polling results were far more favorable. Poll results now have no bearing on that commitment. You can't have takebacks when you've told a people that you will take responsibility for putting them on a path with a decent future, no matter how costly it becomes.

And Senator Levin, who likes to compare his war stance to Lincoln's, should certainly know that.