The Water's Edge and the Iraq Study Group
I have always been puzzled by the claim that "politics should stop at the water's edge." I don't mean that I fail to comprehend the aphorism. The idea is simple enough: Foreign policy matters are of such great importance that partisans should put aside their petty squabbles to come together in the national interest. What puzzles me is how anyone could think just this. The saying seems to assume that it IS okay for us to have politics -- understood as a debased, dishonest discourse -- about such domestic matters as wealth distribution, environmental protection, medical care, and so forth. Even if one thinks that these issues aren't quite so important as foreign policy, they're certainly important enough that one wouldn't want them to be "politicized." If this is one's view, then one should simply say "politics should stop."
I happen to think that in some circumstances, what I'll call "small-p" politics are just the ticket in matters of foreign policy. For example, in a well-functioning electoral system, the public, having soured on the Iraq war, would have turned out not just a few dozen Republican Senators and House members but hundreds of members of both parties who supported this tragic policy blunder in the first place. The political cowardice of leading Democrats in 2002 and 2003 left the nominally opposition party unable to criticize the misadventure in 2006 as fundamentally foolhardy, relying instead on the considerably weaker, albeit still potent, argument that the occupation was bungled through arrogance and incompetence. (I take no satisfaction in the fact that my early criticisms of the war's legality and possible consequences have been largely vindicated.)
As the nation anticipates the recommendations of James Baker's bipartisan Iraq Study Group, however, I have come to see the "water's edge" from a somewhat different perspective. Any successful extrication of the United States from Iraq will have to be able to define success in a way that would have been unthinkable by the war's proponents four years ago. Because Saddam lacked WMDs, the war necessarily did not disarm him; a secular constitutional democracy that will be a model for the whole Middle East is an impossible prospect; even the possibility of a Western-friendly autocracy like Egypt or Jordan now looks like far too much to hope for; realistically, stable partition with the largest portion of Iraq aligned with Iran is at the optimistic end of what we might still accomplish. If we had healthy politics, this outcome would end not only the political career of the Republican bunglers in charge, but also their Democratic facilitators. But we don't have healthy politics, and in order for our current, tainted politicians to be able to save face, those of us who opposed this war from the very beginning may have to accept the forget-about-how-we-got-into-this-mess-here's-what-we-should-do-now spirit in which the Baker report will likely be presented and received. That may be the price of ending U.S. involvement in the Iraqi civil war we catalyzed, and if so, it may even be a price that we longtime critics should be willing to bear. But it's worth noting that "politics should stop at the water's edge" here really means something more like "criticism of the politicians in charge should stop at the water's edge." Maybe that's all it ever means.
I happen to think that in some circumstances, what I'll call "small-p" politics are just the ticket in matters of foreign policy. For example, in a well-functioning electoral system, the public, having soured on the Iraq war, would have turned out not just a few dozen Republican Senators and House members but hundreds of members of both parties who supported this tragic policy blunder in the first place. The political cowardice of leading Democrats in 2002 and 2003 left the nominally opposition party unable to criticize the misadventure in 2006 as fundamentally foolhardy, relying instead on the considerably weaker, albeit still potent, argument that the occupation was bungled through arrogance and incompetence. (I take no satisfaction in the fact that my early criticisms of the war's legality and possible consequences have been largely vindicated.)
As the nation anticipates the recommendations of James Baker's bipartisan Iraq Study Group, however, I have come to see the "water's edge" from a somewhat different perspective. Any successful extrication of the United States from Iraq will have to be able to define success in a way that would have been unthinkable by the war's proponents four years ago. Because Saddam lacked WMDs, the war necessarily did not disarm him; a secular constitutional democracy that will be a model for the whole Middle East is an impossible prospect; even the possibility of a Western-friendly autocracy like Egypt or Jordan now looks like far too much to hope for; realistically, stable partition with the largest portion of Iraq aligned with Iran is at the optimistic end of what we might still accomplish. If we had healthy politics, this outcome would end not only the political career of the Republican bunglers in charge, but also their Democratic facilitators. But we don't have healthy politics, and in order for our current, tainted politicians to be able to save face, those of us who opposed this war from the very beginning may have to accept the forget-about-how-we-got-into-this-mess-here's-what-we-should-do-now spirit in which the Baker report will likely be presented and received. That may be the price of ending U.S. involvement in the Iraqi civil war we catalyzed, and if so, it may even be a price that we longtime critics should be willing to bear. But it's worth noting that "politics should stop at the water's edge" here really means something more like "criticism of the politicians in charge should stop at the water's edge." Maybe that's all it ever means.
posted by Michael C. Dorf @ 10:32 PM
2 Comments:
At 11:21 AM,
Derek said…
I think that's right. I haven't heard the phrase used very often, but when I do it's usually intended to reinforce the injunction to "support our troops." And the chief means of supporting our troops seems to be refraining from criticizing the politicians who put the troops in place, or else the policies that supposedly made it necessary.
At 12:49 PM,
David C. said…
At first I wondered if the phrase was anachronistic, dating back to a time when a young America couldn't engage in any European wars without threatening its very own existence. (See, e.g., Washington's Farewell Address.) If so, it would make some sense to have a domestic/foreign dichotomy. The phrase would mean: Dishonesty in politics is inevitable, and even if we suffer it domestic matters, we can survive its presence; dishonesty in foreign matters, however, could be fatal to the United States, and thus it should not be tolerated. Since President Polk was believed by many (including Representative Abraham Lincoln) to have lied to Congress to get a declaration of war against Mexico in 1846, this sentiment would reflect some experience.
However, the phrase appears to have originated with Senator Vandenberg in 1948, a few years after he converted from isolationist to internationalist (a tempting conversion in the latter half of the 1940s, no doubt). A Republican, Vandenberg was apparently congratulating himself on his cooperation with Truman to support Nato and the Marshall Plan. The phrase, though, really doesn't make too much sense at this time, I don't think. America's successes in North Africa, Europe, and the Pacific demonstrated convincingly that it was one of the military superpowers of the day, and as for the impending Cold War, I don't think the threat of nuclear annihilation was fully appreciated at the time. Meanwhile, on the domestic front, the Civil Rights Era was fast approaching, the federal government was becoming a pervasive presence in people's lives (the APA was passed in 1946), and America's economic prosperity was overshadowed by recent memories of the Great Depression. In sum, in 1948 one might think that debase politics was as great a threat at home as abroad, if not even greater.
I guess today, as in 1948, "the water's edge" is just an empty phrase. I agree with Professor Dorf and Derek: we should hope for meaningful criticism of our leaders in areas of great importance, regardless of whether the government's actions take place on this or that side of the water's edge. Similarly, we should reject self-serving, disingenuous polemics no matter what the subject.
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