Michael J. Totten has accomplished an amazing feat: he has actually given me hope that a Kerry victory in November won't be a major setback in the war on terror. His new essay on Tech Central Station, "Hawks and the Presidency" makes the case for Kerry more convincingly than anything else I have read to date:
Al Qaeda, Chechen terrorists, Hamas, and Iraqi jihadists will blow up commuter trains, shoot kids in the back, massacre Jews in coffeeshops, and cut off the heads of civilians on camera. Saudi Arabia will export jihad. Iran will sabotage Kerry's plans in Iraq while building nuclear weapons.
If the Democrats take back the White House they will have to confront these problems head-on. They won't be on the sidelines. First they'll be doused with a bucket of ice cold realism. Then they'll be shot at. For the first time since September 11, 2001, they will have to think long and hard about what it actually means to govern when fanatics mass-murder innocents while much of the world shrugs.
If you're a fan of the Bush Doctrine, don't be so sure they'll scrap it. Promoting democracy in the Middle East is the perfect project for liberals, especially if George W. Bush isn't stealing what should be their cause. And pre-empting visible threats is practically mandatory. Americans will demand it. This will sink in. But it won't sink in while they're on the bench.
...Democrats will justifiably scoff if Bush wants to wage another pre-emptive war. But they won't scoff if John Kerry does. They will sit up and take notice, and so will some people in Europe. Kerry can change the minds of skeptics. Bush can't.
Along the way, he addresses the Michael Moore left, UN politics, anti-Americanism and the end of Bush Derangement Syndrome. It's an enormously important essay, worthy of a close reading.
And keep in mind - Totten will be dropping the other shoe in a forthcoming essay, "The Liberal Case for Bush". Stay tuned.
UPDATE: Just to clarify - the essay did not convince me that Kerry would be the best candidate, only that should he win the election, there may still be some positives. Most compellingly, a Kerry victory would force the Democrats to be accountable for the war on terror, and thus hopefully to take it more seriously.
ANOTHER UPDATE: "The Liberal Case for Bush" is now up at TCS. My comments can be found here.
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