I'm assuming that the Iraq situation is in fact a quagmire, if not precisely like the Vietnam one -- as long as the U.S. tries to keep its military involved there, it will be in a bad situation, yet the Bush administration (and apparently also Kerry and at least the faction of his advisors which is currently ascendent) fears that "cutting and running" will make the situation even worse. I'm also assuming that the situation will continue to get worse with the U.S. troops there, so eventually either Kerry or Bush, whoever is in charge when matters become completely hopeless, will have to C and R.
So even if Kerry vows to keep the troops there, the writing is on the wall. Whether or not he (or any of his advisors) realizes this and is only talking about continuing the occupation in order to avoid attacks by the Bush campaign for "not supporting the troops" is hard to tell -- the standard modus operandi in political campaigns is always to say and do what you think will get the most votes, so most of the time candidates' official positions mean practically nothing. (Note to Nader admirers: his eagerness to receive support from the Reform Party and even Republicans in his quest for state ballot lines is exactly the same behavior -- he forfeited his reputation for honesty when he started his eagerness to be a presidential candidate.)
I still think that, as the public's attitude towards the war becomes more and more sour, Kerry may very well move "left" on the issue, always trying to maintain a politically safe position, of course. But the anguish being expressed by Nader supporters after the Green Party convention is really anguish at not having a strong political movement for immediate withdrawal at this point. I am also sad about that; I wish we had the strength to force an immediate withdrawal. But such strength is very difficult to achieve. All we can do is do our best to organize as large and powerful a movement as we can.
In the case of the Vietnam War, I think the eventual withdrawal of the U.S. military was due to the rapidly deteriorating situation in that country, together with the process of collapse of the military itself (fragging, desertion, etc.), not to the State-side anti-war movement. The fact is, it's extremely difficult to produce an anti-war movement that can actually stop a war in its tracks, given the reluctance most people feel to weaken the military position of their country. In the opinion polls, a rather high percentage of people may say that they think the war was a mistake to start, or they are unhappy about how it is going now for one reason or another, but that doesn't mean that all of them, or even a large fraction of them, are willing to join a movement pressing for immediate withdrawal. In sum, the anti-Vietnam-War movement was much stronger at its peak than the anti-Iraq-War movement even has been, and even it didn't really have much impact on U.S. military policy.
The really fundamental question is: which course of action would make it more likely that the general foreign policy course that the U.S. government takes in the coming years and decades will be (at least incrementally) more beneficial for the world than it has been -- putting Kerry into the White House or not putting Kerry into the White House (that is, letting Bush stay)? I still have not heard anything like a reasonable argument from the anti-Kerry group explaining why, in any shape or form, to keep Bush in. And this is just with respect to foreign policy, not to mention the whole field of domestic policies.
Jon Johanning // jjohanning at igc.org __________________________________ Had I been present at the Creation, I would have given some useful hints for the better ordering of the universe. -- Attr. to Alfonso the Wise, King of Castile