viewed another way

It’s always interesting to get a glimpse of how others see you. Sometimes, though, it’s mind-blowing.

Gabor Steingart, the Washington-based editor of the German magazine Spiegel, sees an America that Democracy Arsenal’s Shadi Hamid doesn’t recognize:

I found this article from Der Spiegel International to be genuinely bizarre. It reflects, in my view, a serious misreading of American politics. The basic jist [sic] is that liberals are moving to the right on national security (apparently the author doesn’t read blogs), a reality reflected by the hawkishness of the three Democratic presidential contenders. He makes a weird reference to “Barack Bush-Obama,” a term which couldn’t be more unfair to the only candidate who got the Iraq war right. Then this:

The wind has shifted in Washington. America, not just its president, is at war. The Democrats are still critical of the failed Iraq campaign, but they are no longer opposed to the “War on Terror” in general. It has been accepted, and not just as a metaphor.

Really? DA readers, would any of you agree with this assessment?

Actually, I would agree with this assessment. I agree with this too, from the Spiegel article:

Opinion polls have shown consistently for months that while most Americans disapprove of Bush, very few are opposed to the worldwide fight against terrorism. Most Americans believe that the campaign against al-Qaida and its ilk is the only conceivable — in fact, the natural — reaction against the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. The president is not faulted for his declaration of war against the terrorists, but he is blamed for having botched the war in Iraq.

And with this:

[W]hen voters hit the ballot box in November 2008, they will be looking for more than just a candidate charismatic and clever enough to lead the country politically. They will also ask themselves which of the candidates is sufficiently tough, crafty and brutal to win the multi-front war that the Bush administration has begun.

In these early weeks of the 2008 presidential campaign, the candidates from the two major parties are literally vying for the distinction of being the most crafty and pugnacious of the lot in the public eye. The Republicans, especially former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, have kept their steel-plated combat armor on. Their take on the fight against terrorism is to up the ante.

Indeed, Steingart wrote that even before Giuliani laid it all out in an article in Foreign Affairs, which I haven’t read. But the Sun’s Eli Lake has read it.

In a sweeping repudiation of the conventional wisdom that America’s war on terrorism must address Palestinian Arab national grievances, the leading Republican contender for the presidency is warning of the dangers of pressing too soon for Palestinian statehood and is asserting that Israeli security is a “permanent feature of our foreign policy.”

That language appears to be a direct shot at President Bush and Secretary of State Rice, who are making just such a push for final status negotiations between President Abbas and Prime Minister Olmert in September, despite Hamas’s takeover of Gaza in June.

The former mayor’s vision for Israeli-Palestinian negotiations is also a repudiation of the approach of the Baker-Hamilton Commission, a panel on which Mr. Giuliani served briefly. In its final recommendations on Iraq policy in December 2006, the commission urged America not only to re-engage in the peace process, but also to explore ways for Israel to cede the Golan Heights to Syria.

It looks to me like Rudy Giuliani and his brilliant if hawkish foreign policy team are aiming directly for that part of the electorate which Spiegel’s Gabor Steingart describes:

Anyone who hopes to win the support of middle America — geographically, sociologically and politically — has to perform a balancing act of appearing capable of leading the country in war while at the same time not coming across as too eager to fight. Americans want a strong leader, a tough decision maker, not an adventurer. The worst charge one could hurl at a presidential candidate these days is that he or she is soft on terrorism.

Shadi Hamid doesn’t live in middle America, though. He lives (spiritually, at least—I have no idea where he actually lives) inside the Beltway, indeed inside a little cocoon in the Beltway where they’re trying to downplay—literally, with lowercase letters—the terrorism angle:

Personally, I’ve started to decapitalize [sic ---ouch! ed.] the term, to distinguish the real fight against terrorists from Bush’s distinct “War on Terror” - the latter having failed miserably, antagonizing 97% of the world, alienating Muslim moderates, and emboldening terrorists the world over. Anyway, the attempt to distinguish our “war on terrorism” from the Bushies’ “Global War on Terror” seems to be the trend on the Left.

For his part, the ‘Crat Pack’s ^TM ideological sharpshooter Matthew Yglesias, who is exceptionally busy these days trying to purge liberal hawks, is pushing the line that terrorists are mere criminals (and, for good measure, the notion that Giuliani is “batshit insane“)

Of course, we’ll see in November 2008 who correctly picked up the American electorate’s signals. Just a guess: I think it’s Steingart (and Giuliani too). He’s reading things broadly. Specifically, he sees America as:

the third-largest nation on earth, a country spanning four climate zones.

Hamid and Yglesias need to get their noses out of all those policy papers. Actually, they don’t even need to do that. All they have to do is watch a little reality TV.

At every level and in every sphere—social, professional, political, economic, military, corporate,  etc.—America is a nation of ruthlessly competitive people who will stop at nothing to win.