TODAY’S ELECTION is not simply a watershed in American politics, but a punctuation mark in the American war in the greater Middle East. Tomorrow–or whenever the outcome is certain–things will be very different.
The anger, emotion and energy that flowed from September 11 has largely dissipated; the Middle East war is now more clearly a long, twilight struggle to be punctuated by periods of combat, occasionally very intense. Just as Korea and Vietnam were really campaigns in the larger contest of the Cold War, so Afghanistan and Iraq are campaigns in a larger Middle East war.
Our next president must adapt to these new realities, shaping a strategy and, most importantly, military forces suitable for this war. These realities–the preeminence of the United States, the centrality of the Middle East, and the necessity of employing military force–are now deeply embedded in the nature of international politics. Much as he might like to, John Kerry cannot undo the events of the past three years. Events on the immediate horizon promise to cast the die even more rigidly.
In Iraq, U.S. forces are poised to reengage in the long-running battle for Falluja and the Sunni Triangle. Eighteen months after the initial invasion, the debate about the nature of the Iraqi insurgency is academic; if this bastion of resistance is not reduced completely and quickly, the prospects for Iraqi elections in the new year will be bleak indeed. Whatever his objections to the conduct of the Iraq war, John Kerry cannot call a halt to the attacks about to begin. And if President Bush is reelected, he is certain to take the one largest action needed to complete the fight in Iraq. Not even a hung election, as in 2000, is likely to spare the Sunni die-hards from the storm clouds that have been building on their horizon.
Ironically, the one question never put to the candidates during the campaign is the one they are most likely to face early in the coming term of office: What next? The key to continued success in the Middle East war is the retention of the strategic initiative. George W. Bush has convinced both adversaries and allies in the region that the United States means to transform the political order in the region. They hope–at least it’s the hope of our enemies–that John Kerry will retreat from this mission, but at the same time they acknowledge that the underlying conflict will endure any conceivable change in U.S. policy. The revolution in the greater Middle East will continue, and will continue to affect America, regardless of who is president.
As is always the case in war, the campaigns for Afghanistan and Iraq have been imperfectly waged. Yet both have achieved their essential measures of victory; the Taliban and Saddam Hussein’s regime are no more. The question is now whether the United States, Great Britain, and the coalition of the committed have reached a “culminating point of victory”–meaning the moment where the ability to sustain a successful offensive requires greater effort than is immediately possible.
To be successful, the next president must find the energy and the means–most signally amongst Americans, but also amongst the rest of the world–to build upon these initial victories. Simply completing the job in Iraq or Afghanistan will not be enough, and returning to the pre-9/11 status quo is simply impossible. The logic of the war is something that neither candidate can control completely. If reelected, the question for President Bush will be whether he–and a new national security team–will at last match rhetoric with realistic policies and sufficient force. The question for Kerry will be how fast he and his team grasp the realities they’ve been denying on the campaign trail.
Tom Donnelly is a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and a contributing writer to The Daily Standard.
