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On the campaign trail John Kerry has called it "the wrong war, in the wrong place, at the wrong time." If Kerry defeats President Bush on Tuesday, Iraq becomes his war and he could come to regret his choice of words. He has criticized Bush for getting everything wrong in Iraq and promised that he would wage a smarter war. Bush's miscalculations and failures in Iraq are well documented, and voters may decide to give Kerry the chance to prove his competence as commander in chief.
Iraq has been the overarching issue of the 2004 election and will be the central challenge facing the next president, whether it be Bush or Kerry. If Kerry becomes a wartime president he will be put to the test at home and abroad, by friend and foe. He is sure to come under pressure from the antiwar - make that the Michael Moore - wing of the Democratic Party to start winding down "Bush's war" and bringing U.S. troops home, even if withdrawal could lead to chaos in Iraq and a surge of anti-American extremism across the region.
I can't imagine Kerry sounding retreat, but I'm not sure he has any better options than Bush would have in a second term. Kerry has said repeatedly that, as president, he would be committed to finishing the job in Iraq and that he wants to "win." However, if Bush has made as big a mess of Iraq as Kerry keeps saying - and the evidence says he has - it's not clear what he would or could do differently or how he would define a "win." Will Kerry be prepared to see through the battle against Iraqi insurgents and terrorists as the cost - in American lives and treasure - keeps rising on his watch? Last week, Kerry pounced on a news report saying Bush plans to seek another $70-billion to fund military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.
"How much more are the American people going to have to pay?" Kerry shouted in Wisconsin.
If Kerry is elected, he will have to answer that question soon enough. How many American and Iraqi dead is too high a price to pay for winning the "wrong war"? At what point would Bush's war become Kerry's war?
The Massachusetts senator has left a maddening trail of inconsistent and contradictory statements on Iraq, but by the end of the campaign his goals and strategy sounded essentially the same as Bush's - to bring stability and some form of democracy to Iraq and to seek more international support to bring some relief to U.S. forces. In the campaign Kerry has spoken simultaneously of his willingness to commit more American troops to Iraq and of his hope to start bringing our soldiers home by the end of the first six months of his presidency. Which would it be? He couldn't do both.
Kerry has told voters he has "a plan" for just about everything - job creation, health care, deficit reduction, schools, you name it. But if he has a plan for winning in Iraq we haven't heard much about it other than his pledge to persuade our European allies to lend a hand in fighting the "wrong war." There's little chance of Old Europe coming to a President Kerry's rescue. The French and the Germans have made it clear there is no way they will send troops to Iraq, even if Kerry gets down on his knees and says, pretty please. It's possible they might offer some reconstruction assistance, but it's hard to see how reconstruction can go forward until there is security and stability in Iraq.
If Germany and France were to spurn a Kerry request for military support, it could complicate another Kerry goal if he becomes president - repairing American-European relations, which have been strained almost to the breaking point during the Bush administration. "If they were to say no to Kerry the risk of a backlash against Europe in America would be large," William Drozdiak, director of the German Marshall Fund's Transatlantic Center, told the New York Times. "Americans would say, "We can't depend on Europe, even though we protected Europe for 50 years.' It will cause lasting damage to the relationship, a great sense of disillusionment."
Rejection by France and Germany would not be Kerry's only problem. He has disparaged other countries that sent soldiers to fight alongside Americans in Iraq as "a coalition of the bribed and the coerced." As president, Kerry might want to call the leaders of Poland, Italy, Britain and South Korea, among others, to say he meant no offense. Those governments are under growing pressure to pull out of Iraq - allies Kerry could not afford to lose.
As a senator, Kerry's record is not one of making difficult or unpopular choices. As president, that would be about all he would face at home and abroad.
Philip Gailey's e-mail address is gailey@sptimes.com