Why Kerry can ask for allied support and Bush can't

John Kerry is criticized by the GOP for not having a plan to extract America from Iraq that is significantly different than the President's. But the criticism itself misses the central point. The central point is that John Kerry did not start the war. Bush started it. Kerry will have to deal with it as president. In order to do that he will naturally have to do some of the same things Bush is doing. Comparing Kerry to Bush on Iraq is like asking yourself who you would like to save your burning house: The fireman or the guy who lit it on fire? Both will use water, but do you really want to trust the guy that started it?

Likewise, the GOP and Bush-backing bloggers seem to think that the President's high point in last week's debate came when the President asked:

"Plus, he says the cornerstone of his plan to succeed in Iraq is to call upon nations to serve. So what's the message going to be: 'Please join us in Iraq. We're a grand diversion. Join us for a war that is the wrong war at the wrong place at the wrong time?'"

That is the President giving us a live demonstration of his vaunted stubborness in the face of overwhelming evidence.John Kerry isn't going to ask our allies to join us in "grand diversion." That's what the President did when he asked the world to join us as he ordered the army to sprint into Iraq with a map made of dreams. The Iraq war was a diversion then.

It isn't a diversion anymore. Now, Iraq it is the largest terrorist training camp in the world. Iraq is almost a completely failed state. These conditions can be directly attributed to Bush's policies. Yet, the President continues to use the same set of failed assumptions to frame his and Kerry's positions. This highlights true differences between the two men.

It is Bush that would be asking our allies to join him in continuing to support the grand diversion, which is that terrorism is best fought through the utopian vision of "spreading freedom." Bush will ask our allies to join him, again, to complete his visionquest:

"And, as well, we're pursuing a strategy of freedom around the world, because I understand free nations will reject terror. Free nations will answer the hopes and aspirations of their people. Free nations will help us achieve the peace we all want."

Most of the world rejects this evangelical notion because freedom isn't spread like butter. The power of freedom is based on attraction rather than promotion. The world now understands that when Bush says he is pursuing a strategy of freedom, he includes an element of transformative alchemy usually found in a revival tent, but is sorely lacking in actual battle and its ensuing power vacuums. The world sees the results of Bush's strategy in Iraq. That strategy is a flop.

In that regard, Kerry would be asking something quite different of our allies. Kerry would be asking already free nations to join him in removing the festering sore on the global body politic incubated by his predecessor. Kerry would make it clear that this fight is not about spreading freedom, it is about fighting terrorism. Kerry could seperate America from Bush's Folly and bind the international community together in a real common purpose: saving our skins.