2008 Polls National Iowa New Hampshire General Election GOP | Dem GOP | Dem GOP | Dem Head-to-Head

---

July 22, 2006

Hot Story: Fight to the Finish

Beltway Boys

FRED BARNES, "WEEKLY STANDARD": I'm Fred Barnes.

MORT KONDRACKE, "ROLL CALL": I'm Mort Kondracke. And we're "The Beltway Boys."

BARNES: Mort, the "Hot Story" is "Fight to the Finish." Well, not quite to the finish - not to the point where - where Israel will have destroyed Hezbollah completely. But at leas to the point where Israel has crippled Hezbollah, had "degraded" - that's a favorite word of the administration - degraded its military assets, which are mainly missiles, and has really emasculated Hezbollah as a political force in Lebanon, where it - it really has a detail, whatever that democratic country does.

Now there will be no cease-fire. So this will - at least for now. And this is what - and this will give Israel a few more weeks to finish the job with Hezbollah.

Condi Rice, the secretary of state, explained why there should be no cease-fire now. Watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CONDOLEEZZA RICE, SECRETARY OF STATE: A cease-fire would be a false promise if it simply returns us to the status quo, allowing terrorists to launch attacks at the time and terms of their choosing, and to threaten innocent people - Arab and Israeli - throughout the region. That would be a guarantee of future violence.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BARNES: Secretary Rice is, of course, going to the Middle East next week, and will not be asking for a cease-fire when she's there.

Now the administration's goal from the beginning here - actually going back to 2002 - is to create a new Middle East, one where democracy can flourish, where terrorism stops and where Israel is secure. Now they've got a - they still have a long ways to go.

KONDRACKE: Yes.

Well, you know, there's bipartisan unity, for once, on one thing at least, and that's Israel's right to - to defend itself. There's not a partisan fight over that. But there are differences in approach between Democrats and Republicans on foreign policy. And this crisis demonstrates it.

I mean, Madeleine Albright, Bill Clinton's secretary of state, her instant reaction was that Condi Rice ought to leave St. Petersburg, get an airplane, go start shuttle diplomacy and - with the implication that there ought to be a cease-fire right away. But was you point out, the administration understands that in order to get to a stable Lebanon, Israel has got to pummel Hezbollah into the ground in order to create the conditions for a - for a lasting cease-fire. So that's a big - that's a big difference.

There's another difference on - on overall attitudes toward diplomacy between Democrats and Republicans.

Watch Chris Dodd. This - this was his reaction to - to the - when the - when the fighting broke out. Watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. CHRIS DODD (D), CONNECTICUTT: From 1967 up until the end of the Clinton administration, every administration has remained very, very engaged in the Middle East. This administration, unfortunately, has seen the word "diplomacy" and "negotiation" as somehow a favor to your enemies.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KONDRACKE: And Howard Dean, the Democratic National chairman, was - was even more, I would say, partisan about this. He said - quote - "If you think what's going on in the Middle East today would be going on if Democrats were in control, it wouldn't, because we would have worked" day and night to make - "day after day to make sure that we didn't get where we are today."

Now, the - what.

BARNES: He really believes that?

KONDRACKE: Well, I don't know whether he believes it or not. But he - but he certainly said it.

The attitude is that, what you got to get, is you got to get deals. You got to get agreements, you know? And you got to be working on - on agreements. Now it's - the fact is that the - the Bush administration has not been ignoring the Middle East. It looked at what Bill Clinton tried to produce with Yasser Arafat, and saw that there was no business to be done with Yasser Arafat in the beginning. So then it put its bets on Mahmoud Abbas, hoping that he would be able to pull things together and be a better leader for the Palestinian people. Poor Abbas couldn't do it either. And now you've got Hamas in control of - of - of - of the Palestinian Authority. And there's no business to be done with that.

So, you know, sometimes you can get a deal, and sometimes you can't. But it's not because they haven't been working the problem. But the Democrats criticize unless there's - unless there's a peace agreement achieved that - that tried to transform the Middle East is not - is not a worthy - is not a worthy goal.

BARNES: Mort, if anything, you - you may have underestimated how much partisan politics is involved in this Democratic criticism of Bush. You know, during that period that Senator Dodd thought was the golden age of diplomacy and so on, there were a lot of wars in the Middle East. A lot of people were killed.

But in any case, the most partisan was Harry Reid, the Democratic leader in the Senate, who criticized the Bush administration for evacuate - the way it evacuated these Americans from Lebanon.

Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. HARRY REID (D-NV), SENATE MINORITY LEADER: And I think it's too bad that this is being treated a as a mini-Katrina. These people are just being stranded in Lebanon. And that's not a good reaction by this government, led by the White House.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BARNES: A mini-Katrina. What a cheap shot.

Anyway, look, the administration, as I suggested a - a moment ago, really has been consistent in its policies since 2002. Remember when Bush announced a new policy. It affected mainly the Palestinians, but he was talking the - the entire Middle East. And - and he announced a - a - a new Middle East policy.

One of the hallmarks of his policy is, I think, something that you suggested: that they - they're not looking for just some deal between irreconciliables. And so - because they know word - that won't work. So getting a deal between Israel - and even a cease-fire between Israel and Hezbollah, that won't go anywhere. It won't be worth the paper it was written on. You couldn't trust Hezbollah. Or one between Israel and Hamas, or even Israel and Syria. They - I mean, you don't want deals like that. They're worthless.

KONDRACKE: Yes. Well, what - what the - the administration is doing, you got to admit, is risky. I mean, it's - it's a departure from tradition, from what administrations used to do. But it - it - it involves risk. I mean, instead of reaching deals, it is - it is - it's an attempt to actually heighten the contradictions and make people choose. Do you want to be on the side of Iran and Syria and Hezbollah and al-Qaida and Hamas? Or are you going to be on the side of the Democrats?

The - the - the danger is, that this is a region that even though all people, you know, aspire to democracy, may not be culturally or politically capable of it. If that's the case, we're in for a very long period of - of more violence. And, you know, some of it may be visited on the United States. Hezbollah, after all, does have some global reach. And I wouldn't be surprised but what - you know, there isn't a terrorist danger to people all over the world, including possibly in the United States.

---

Sponsored Links

About Us | Contact | Advertise | Privacy Policy         © RealClearPolitics 2006