Kevin Drum makes an argument worth responding to regarding Hillary Clinton’s foreign policy views, but that’ll have to wait for tomorrow. Instead, let me note this post by Ambassador Joe Wilson in support of Clinton. Clearly, securing the support of some prominent war opponents like Wilson has, for Clinton, been an important part of the effort to defuse anger over her position on Iraq. And it really is to her credit that she has the support of several such figures. That said, claims like this from Wilson don’t really fly:

Many of the most prominent early opponents of the war, including former General Wes Clark and former ambassador to the United National Richard Holbrooke support Senator Clinton for President, as do I.

Needless to say, Holbrooke didn’t oppose the war at all. He was a fairly prominent advocate for war, not as influential as Kenneth Pollack, but part of the group of former Clinton administration officials who helped sell the war to Democratic politicians and citizens. The inability or unwillingness of Clinton and her circle to give an accurate account of what she and her allies were up to in 2002 and 2003 really bothers me. I’m willing to forgive people for their errors, but I’d like to know what Clinton et. al. think the moral of the story is (contrast her handling of this issue to the deft way in which she’s plausibly argued that her participation in the failed health reform effort of the 1990s makes her uniquely prepared to grasp the pitfalls and find the path to progress) and what they’ve learned.

Instead, you keep hearing that she was actually opposed to the war! Or if she wasn’t, maybe Bill was! Or maybe Dick Holbrooke was! Or, or, or, or … who knows? It’s an odd way to behave and it makes it hard to clear the air. John Edwards has, by contrast, acknowledged error in a straightforward way and then laid out a compelling vision of American engagement with the world that clearly reflects a new, post-Iraq understanding of how the country should conduct itself on the world stage.

Commenter Sam responded to yesterday’s post on comparative airport security:

Counterpoint: The Schipol airport had more security than any I’ve ever been through, including Ben-Gurion. They quizzed, bugged and pestered me a lot more than people at Reagan do.

The quizzing is true. I was standing right by the gate and got a pretty serious third degree — I didn’t have a good, brief explanation of what the conference I’d been attending was about (“it was about progressive America” “what does that mean?” “um…”) and kind of thought I’d be locked away. That said, they let me get away in the end, things actually moved very speedily and the security personnel were much friendlier than Americans.

I’ve said, repeatedly, that to me the defining issue in the Democratic primary is that I think Hillary Clinton’s foreign policy would be worse than would the alternatives. Under the circumstances, I think I owe the world a clearer explanation of what I think the problem is. One correspondent boiled the issue down the other day to the idea that I think Hillary would be “too hawkish.” I don’t really like that way of framing the issue, which I think makes things far too crude. Maybe Clinton will be too hawkish, and maybe she won’t; maybe it’s hard to know what that means; maybe a situation will arise where a hawkish response is warranted. The problem is something else.

The problem is that I think she’s unlikely to try any of the bold strokes necessary to turn our situation around. I don’t see her trying for a grand bargain with Iran, don’t see her making the tough choices necessary to revitalize the NPT, don’t see her taking political risks on the Arab-Israeli confict, don’t see her acting boldly and decisively on Iraq, and don’t see her accomplishing anything particularly innovative and interesting in terms of UN Reform.

By contrast, I think an Obama administration (and probably an Edwards administration as well) will include some people at high-levels who are pressing for those things, and will be led by a man who has some inclinations in those directions. I think Clinton and her people are too narrowly political, too complacent about the depth of America’s problems in the world, and, yes, maybe too inclined to believe that if the shit really hits the fan all that’ll happen is that public support for the use of force will revive and that under new, more competent leadership, the armed forces will resolve the situation by waging a new war.

And, at the end of the day, I’m against Clinton mostly because I have a choice: I can live with President Clinton and Secretary of State Holbrooke but given that there’s a different, better set of people available, I hope they win. If they don’t, I’ll hope Clinton has the good sense to listen to the smarter members of her team

But mostly it’s just that we have a choice: I can live with President Clinton and Secretary of State Holbrooke but given that there’s another, better set of people available, I hope they win. If they don’t, I’ll hope HRC has the good sense to listen to the smarter members of her team: they’re not all bad.

I was on “Marketplace” the other day talking about the presidential campaign’s turn away from national security issues and toward the domestic stuff, and one point I made during the interview (not sure exactly what they actually aired) was that this is likely to change when we move into general election mode. I think there are important differences between the Democratic candidates on foreign policy issues, but they’re relatively subtle. By contrast, as Ezra says there’s a huge gaping chasm between where the Democrats are and where (assuming Ron Paul doesn’t get the nomination) the Republicans are and, as a result, we should expect this subject to come roaring back into view.

Meanwhile, Democrats aren’t going to have an easy time of it. George Bush’s reputation for incompetence won’t automatically transfer to a copartisan, but the press will be very open to stories about Democrats’ generic sins of “weakness” on security. Edwards or Clinton will be attacked as flip-floppers; too weak to stand up to their own liberal base, and thus obviously unfit to stand up to Osama bin Laden. Barack Hussein Obama, by contrast, would have left a nuclear-armed Saddam Hussein in power to blackmail America into submission.

Not that these are irrefutable lines of attack by any means, but there’s going to have to be a big fight about it. The Republican nominee isn’t going to agree to have a lot of fights about who’s best suited to accomplishing broadly shared goals.

Photo by Flickr user phxpma used under a Creative Commons license

It’s too bad The New York Times‘s Patrick Healy has decided to report on Bill Richardson’s point that “Senator Clinton’s comments are a stunning flip-flop — she’s been saying she would keep troops in Iraq for five years, until 2013, and now she comes up with an inconsistent, incredible turnaround” purely through the lens of Richardson’s alleged vice presidential ambitions. Clearly, forward-looking Iraq policy is one of the most important issues on the table in this election. What’s more, unlike health care or global warming, the new president will just get to implement his or her preferred policy by fiat.

I’d like to know what’s going on. Of course, if Clinton really has flip-flopped away from her old position that I disagreed with and adopted a new, better position I’m not going to condemn her for that: being open to persuasive arguments and new evidence is a good thing. But I do want to know what her position is since she’s had a pattern of misleading rhetoric on this score, promising to “end the war” but leave tens of thousands of soldiers in the war zone.

UPDATE: The Clinton campaign fires back with this rebuttal that, I think, does effectively rebut the charge of flip-flopping. Clinton has consistently said that, in office, she’ll act swiftly to remove one or two brigades a month until we’re down to a “vastly reduced” residual force. That’s a little vague, and given that the incentives during the primary are to shade your position to the left I doubt it specifies a policy I agree with, but it’s one she’s consistently adhered to.