Insufficient Dedication

That Political Animal (who’s celebrating his 13th wedding anniversary today) writes about Wes Clark’s interesting article in the Washington Monthly, which I have linked before:

Clark’s point is a simple one: Neither Reagan nor any of the seven Cold War presidents before him ever attacked either the Soviet Union or one of its satellites directly. This wasn’t because of insufficient dedication to anticommunism, but because it wouldn’t have worked. In the end, they knew that democracy couldn’t come at the point of a gun; it had to come from within, from the citizens of the countries themselves.

Is this right? To argue otherwise is to suggest that our Cold War strategy was also wrong. Perhaps we should have rolled our tanks across the Iron Curtain after World War II, when the Soviet Union was exhausted and weary. Or attacked China instead of accepting a truce in the Korean War. Or sent NATO troops into Hungary in 1956.

Of course not. Even if we had “won,” we wouldn’t have won. In the end, the patient strategy of military containment and cultural engagement was the right call, and it’s the right call for the war on terror as well. Too bad George Bush doesn’t seem to get this.

Too bad George Bush doesn’t seem to get how to eat a pretzel without passing out either, but that’s just who he is. The problem, of course, is the Republican intelligensia[sic] who wanted to play Risk with real soldiers.

The Neocons have always been wrong about everything. Remember, Paul Wolfowitz wanted to invade Russia after the Berlin Wall came down. They are, and always have been, nuttier than fruitcakes.