Gordon Smith has done George Bush and Iraq war backers a huge service. In fact, his speech last week was more constructive than the Iraq Study Group's lame offerings.
But didn't Oregon's Republican senator call the war "criminal" and "absurd"? Didn"t he urge a "pullout" according to The Washington Post? Didn't he say that if he knew then what he knows now, he wouldn't have voted for the war? Hasn't Smith hopped aboard the anti-war bandwagon?
So you might gather if all you heard were a few sound bites from the speech or read some press accounts. But not if you actually read Smith's speech. And not if you've had a chance to talk to him.
Smith wasn't saying anything that war supporters haven't been thinking for months. The fact is there's almost nothing in his speech that anyone who wants the United States to succeed in Iraq would dispute. He simply spoke at the right time with the right emotional pitch—the heartfelt emotion equal to the life-and-death issues playing out in Iraq: ("[I], for one, am tired of paying the price of 10 or more of our troops dying a day.") He's not tired of the killing that war brings. He's tired of what has come to look like the pointless killing of our kids in a war between Iraqis.
Bush would do well to address criticisms like Smith's. Here's someone who's open to something other than a pullout and who backed the war going in. Here's someone who wants U.S. success in Iraq. Bush should do everything he can to find a strategy that wins over the Smiths of our country.
Was he apologizing for his 2002 Iraq war vote? No, he was simply stating the obvious: If he knew then all we know today—that our intel was bad and we'd find no weapons of mass destruction—he'd have voted differently. He knows that's history. He knows lawmakers don't have the luxury of deciding war and peace based on what the future holds. They're not prophets. He also knows the world is better for Saddam Hussein's expulsion.
Was Smith calling the war itself "criminal" or "absurd"? No, he was criticizing the prosecution of the war's latest phase. "[W]e have not cleared and held and built," he said. "We have cleared and left, and the insurgents have come back. I, for one, am at the end of my rope when it comes to supporting a policy that has our soldiers patrolling the same streets in the same way, being blown up by the same bombs day after day. That is absurd. It may even be criminal. I cannot support that anymore."
Was Smith advocating U.S. pullout or cut and run? Not necessarily. Here's the next passage from the speech: "I believe we need to figure out how to fight the war on terror and to do it right. So either we clear and hold and build, or let's go home."
Smith wants a change in tactics, and he's not talking about the Iraq Study Group's major recommendations. "It does seem to me that it is a recipe for retreat. It is not cut and run, but it is cut and walk," Smith told the Senate. "I don't know that that is any more honorable than cutting and running, because cutting and walking involves greater expenditure of our treasure, greater loss of American lives."
Exactly. Smith's position has an intellectual and moral coherence that a phased withdrawal lacks. We're either in all the way or all out: "I believe now that we must either determine to [clear, hold and build] or we must redeploy in a way that allows us to continue to prosecute the larger war on terror."
Even after his cri de coeur—cry from the heart—Smith seems closer to John McCain's views than those of John Murtha or Wayne Morse. Unlike McCain, he's not particularly interested in a big U.S. troop buildup in Baghdad. He thinks this "crutch" would keep Iraqis from taking the steps they need to take control of their country. But he still wants to fight terrorists in Iraq. He favors repositioning U.S. troops to areas along the Syrian and Iraqi border to interdict jihadists, weaponry and funding.
You don't have to agree with every adjective Smith used or military proposal he advanced to see he has made a material contribution to the Iraq war debate. He's spoken his mind and heart. He's transcended the bromides of the pro- and anti-war camps at home to confront the realities of the war. He's shown a real independence worthy of this unique historical moment. Smith is trying to move beyond sound bites—if only we let him.
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David Reinhard is the associate editor of The Oregonian in Portland, Oregon.
