| Table
Talk panelists debate ideology behind Iraq war
BY
ADRIENNE FRANK
Photo by Jeff
Watts
Lawrence
Kaplan, of the New Republic, left, discusses the
Iraq war as university chaplain Joe Eldridge looks on.
|
The
election may be history, but—as evidenced by a heated Table
Talk discussion last Wednesday titled “Presidential Sweepstakes:
Impact of U.S. Foreign Policy”—it appears both sides remain
deeply entrenched.
During
the discussion, panelists Lawrence Kaplan, senior editor of the
New Republic, and Phil Brenner, professor at the School of
International Service, touched on issues pertaining to North Korea,
Iran, and Palestine, but focused the majority of their comments
on the Iraq war. And while both agreed that, under the Bush administration,
American troops will be in Iraq for years to come, their perspectives
diverged greatly when the discussion turned towards their personal
ideologies. Kaplan argued that American power is the “linchpin
of world order,” while Brenner submitted that U.S. power often
results in mayhem.
According
to Kaplan, the situation in Iraq is one in which “You know
you’re going to lose, but you can’t afford to lose. It’s
one of those things that the president, dare I say, is religiously
committed to. Under a Kerry administration—I’m fairly
certain from interviewing some of his advisors—we would’ve
skedaddled out of Iraq within a few months, but the fact is, America’s
tied down in Iraq for now and will be for many years.”
Kaplan
also stressed throughout the discussion that “American power
is really a force for good in the world,” citing the fact that
Iraq is slowly moving towards democracy. He added that errors in
Iraq are “errors of implementation that don’t reflect
the ideals that generated the war in the first place.”
Brenner
said the election was “a mandate for war” and agreed that
America will be at war for “the indefinite future.” He
noted that when issues of foreign policy were brought up during
the presidential debates, Kerry and Bush were both “steering
towards U.S. global domination,” agreeing that “the U.S.
is the only country that can bring order to this chaotic place [Iraq].”
He
explained that Kerry favored “soft power”—the notion
that American values and the American economy are attractive to
the rest of the world, and that other nations will eventually join
“our side.” Bush and the Republicans, on the other hand,
favor a “tough love approach”—the idea that America
knows what’s best for other nations and will act accordingly.
“The
two debated the methods of achieving order, not whether or not we
should achieve it,” said Brenner, adding that the latter was
the more pressing question. He also said Bush’s approach “is
likely to produce far more deaths,” and thus the U.S. occupation
of Iraq has resulted in more chaos than order.
“If
you mean to do bad things with this country’s military might,
it’s very easy to do that,” Kaplan said, responding to
Brenner’s argument. “But I don’t think that’s
the case here.” |
